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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/37062-8.txt b/37062-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8876abd --- /dev/null +++ b/37062-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4325 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Thousandth Woman, by Ernest W. Hornung + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Thousandth Woman + +Author: Ernest W. Hornung + +Illustrator: Frank Snapp + +Release Date: August 13, 2011 [EBook #37062] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THOUSANDTH WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +THE THOUSANDTH WOMAN + + +[Illustration: "I wonder who can have done it."] + + + + +THE THOUSANDTH WOMAN + +_By_ +ERNEST W. HORNUNG + +_Author of_ +THE AMATEUR CRACKSMAN, RAFFLES, ETC. + +ILLUSTRATED BY +FRANK SNAPP + +INDIANAPOLIS +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY +PUBLISHERS + + +COPYRIGHT 1913 +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + +PRESS OF +BRAUNWORTH & CO. +BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS +BROOKLYN, N. Y. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I A SMALL WORLD 1 + + II SECOND SIGHT 16 + + III IN THE TRAIN 29 + + IV DOWN THE RIVER 42 + + V AN UNTIMELY VISITOR 64 + + VI VOLUNTARY SERVICE 83 + + VII AFTER MICHELANGELO 98 + +VIII FINGER-PRINTS 117 + + IX FAIR WARNING 134 + + X THE WEEK OF THEIR LIVES 146 + + XI IN COUNTRY AND IN TOWN 156 + + XII THE THOUSANDTH MAN 169 + +XIII QUID PRO QUO 181 + + XIV FAITH UNFAITHFUL 205 + + XV THE PERSON UNKNOWN 214 + + + + +THE THOUSANDTH WOMAN + + + + +I + +A SMALL WORLD + + +Cazalet sat up so suddenly that his head hit the woodwork over the upper +berth. His own voice still rang in his startled ears. He wondered how +much he had said, and how far it could have carried above the throb of +the liner's screws and the mighty pounding of the water against her +plates. Then his assembling senses coupled the light in the cabin with +his own clear recollection of having switched it off before turning +over. And then he remembered how he had been left behind at Naples, and +rejoined the _Kaiser Fritz_ at Genoa, only to find that he no longer had +a cabin to himself. + +A sniff assured Cazalet that he was neither alone at the moment nor yet +the only one awake; he pulled back the swaying curtain, which he had +taken to keeping drawn at night; and there on the settee, with the +thinnest of cigarettes between his muscular fingers, sat a man with a +strong blue chin and the quizzical solemnity of an animated sphinx. + +It was his cabin companion, an American named Hilton Toye, and Cazalet +addressed him with nervous familiarity. + +"I say! Have I been talking in my sleep?" + +"Why, yes!" replied Hilton Toye, and broke into a smile that made a +human being of him. + +Cazalet forced a responsive grin, as he reached for his own cigarettes. +"What did I say?" he asked, with an amused curiosity at variance with +his shaking hand and shining forehead. + +Toye took him in from crown to fingertips, with something deep behind +his kindly smile. "I judge," said he, "you were dreaming of some drama +you've been seeing ashore, Mr. Cazalet." + +"Dreaming!" said Cazalet, wiping his face. "It was a nightmare! I must +have turned in too soon after dinner. But I should like to know what I +said." + +"I can tell you word for word. You said, 'Henry Craven--dead!' and then +you said, 'Dead--dead--Henry Craven!' as if you'd got to have it both +ways to make sure." + +"It's true," said Cazalet, shuddering. "I saw him lying dead, in my +dream." + +Hilton Toye took a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket. "Thirteen +minutes to one in the morning," he said, "and now it's September +eighteenth. Take a note of that, Mr. Cazalet. It may be another case of +second sight for your psychical research society." + +"I don't care if it is." Cazalet was smoking furiously. + +"Meaning it was no great friend you dreamed was dead?" + +"No friend at all, dead or alive!" + +"I'm kind of wondering," said Toye, winding his watch up slowly, "if +he's by way of being a friend of mine. I know a Henry Craven over in +England. Lives along the river, down Kingston way, in a big house." + +"Called Uplands?" + +"Yes, sir! That's the man. Little world, isn't it?" + +The man in the upper berth had to hold on as his curtains swung clear; +the man tilted back on the settee, all attention all the time, was more +than ever an effective foil to him. Without the kindly smile that went +as quickly as it came, Hilton Toye was somber, subtle and demure. +Cazalet, on the other hand, was of sanguine complexion and impetuous +looks. He was tanned a rich bronze about the middle of the face, but it +broke off across his forehead like the coloring of a meerschaum pipe. +Both men were in their early prime, and each stood roughly for his race +and type: the traveled American who knows the world, and the elemental +Britisher who has made some one loose end of it his own. + +"I thought of my Henry Craven," continued Toye, "as soon as ever you +came out with yours. But it seemed a kind of ordinary name. I might +have known it was the same if I'd recollected the name of his firm. +Isn't it Craven & Cazalet, the stockbrokers, down in Tokenhouse Yard?" + +"That's it," said Cazalet bitterly. "But there have been none of us in +it since my father died ten years ago." + +"But you're Henry Craven's old partner's son?" + +"I'm his only son." + +"Then no wonder you dream about Henry Craven," cried Toye, "and no +wonder it wouldn't break your heart if your dream came true." + +"It wouldn't," said Cazalet through his teeth. "He wasn't a white man to +me or mine--whatever you may have found him." + +"Oh! I don't claim to like him a lot," said Toye. + +"But you seem to know a good deal about him?" + +"I had a little place near his one summer. I know only what I heard down +there." + +"What did you hear?" asked Cazalet. "I've been away ten years, ever +since the crash that ruined everybody but the man at the bottom of the +whole thing. It would be a kindness to tell me what you heard." + +"Well, I guess you've said it yourself right now. That man seems to have +beggared everybody all around except himself; that's how I make it out," +said Hilton Toye. + +"He did worse," said Cazalet through his teeth. "He killed my poor +father; he banished me to the wilds of Australia; and he sent a better +man than himself to prison for fourteen years!" + +Toye opened his dark eyes for once. "Is that so? No. I never heard +that," said he. + +"You hear it now. He did all that, indirectly, and I don't care who +hears me say so. I didn't realize it at the time. I was too young, and +the whole thing laid me out too flat; but I know it now, and I've known +it long enough. It was worse than a crash. It was a scandal. That was +what finished us off, all but Henry Craven! There'd been a gigantic +swindle--special investments recommended by the firm, bogus certificates +and all the rest of it. We were all to blame, of course. My poor father +ought never to have been a business man at all; he should have been a +poet. Even I--I was only a youngster in the office, but I ought to have +known what was going on. But Henry Craven _did_ know. He was in it up to +the neck, though a fellow called Scruton did the actual job. Scruton +got fourteen years--and Craven got our old house on the river!" + +"And feathered it pretty well!" said Toye, nodding. "Yes, I did hear +that. And I can tell you they don't think any better of him, in the +neighborhood, for going to live right there. But how did he stop the +other man's mouth, and--how do you know?" + +"Never mind how I know," said Cazalet. "Scruton was a friend of mine, +though an older man; he was good to me, though he was a wrong 'un +himself. He paid for it--paid for two--that I _can_ say! But he was +engaged to Ethel Craven at the time, was going to be taken into +partnership on their marriage, and you can put two and two together for +yourself." + +"Did she wait for him?" + +"About as long as you'd expect of the breed! She was her father's +daughter. I wonder you didn't come across her and her husband!" + +"I didn't see so much of the Craven crowd," replied Hilton Toye. "I +wasn't stuck on them either. Say, Cazalet, I wouldn't be that old man +when Scruton comes out, would you?" + +But Cazalet showed that he could hold his tongue when he liked, and his +grim look was not so legible as some that had come and gone before. This +one stuck until Toye produced a big flask from his grip, and the talk +shifted to less painful ground. It was the last night in the Bay of +Biscay, and Cazalet told how he had been in it a fortnight on his way +out by sailing-vessel. He even told it with considerable humor, and hit +off sundry passengers of ten years ago as though they had been aboard +the German boat that night; for he had gifts of anecdote and verbal +portraiture, and in their unpremeditated cups Toye drew him out about +the bush until the shadows passed for minutes from the red-brick face +with the white-brick forehead. + +"I remember thinking I would dig for gold," said Cazalet. "That's all I +knew about Australia; that and bushrangers and dust-storms and +bush-fires! But you can have adventures of sorts if you go far enough +up-country for 'em; it still pays you to know how to use your fists out +there. I didn't, but I was picking it up before I'd been out three +months, and in six I was as ready as anybody to take off my coat. I +remember once at a bush shanty they dished up such fruity chops that I +said I'd fight the cook if they'd send _him_ up; and I'm blowed if it +wasn't a fellow I'd been at school with and worshiped as no end of a +swell at games! Potts his name was, old Venus Potts, the best looking +chap in the school among other things; and there he was, cooking carrion +at twenty-five bob a week! Instead of fighting we joined forces, got a +burr-cutting job on a good station, then a better one over shearing, and +after that I wormed my way in as bookkeeper, and my pal became one of +the head overseers. Now we're our own bosses with a share in the show, +and the owner comes up only once a year to see how things are looking." + +"I hope he had a daughter," said Toye, "and that you're going to marry +her, if you haven't yet?" + +Cazalet laughed, but the shadow had returned. "No. I left that to my +pal," he said. "_He_ did that all right!" + +"Then I advise you to go and do likewise," rejoined his new friend with +a geniality impossible to take amiss. "I shouldn't wonder, now, if +there's some girl you left behind you." + +Cazalet shook his head. "None who would look on herself in that light," +he interrupted. It was all he said, but once more Toye was regarding him +as shrewdly as when the night was younger, and the littleness of the +world had not yet made them confidant and boon companion. + +Eight bells actually struck before their great talk ended and Cazalet +swore that he missed the "watches aft, sir!" of the sailing-vessel ten +years before; and recalled how they had never changed watch without +putting the ship about, his last time in the bay. + +"Say!" exclaimed Hilton Toye, knitting his brows over some nebulous +recollection of his own. "I seem to have heard of you and some of your +yarns before. Didn't you spend nights in a log-hut miles and miles from +any other human being?" + +It was as they were turning in at last, but the question spoiled a yawn +for Cazalet. + +"Sometimes, at one of our out-stations," said he, looking puzzled. + +"I've seen your photograph," said Toye, regarding him with a more +critical stare. "But it was with a beard." + +"I had it off when I was ashore the other day," said Cazalet. "I always +meant to, before the end of the voyage." + +"I see. It was a Miss Macnair showed me that photograph--Miss Blanche +Macnair lives in a little house down there near your old home. I judge +hers is another old home that's been broken up since your day." + +"They've all got married," said Cazalet. + +"Except Miss Blanche. You write to her some, Mr. Cazalet?" + +"Once a year--regularly. It was a promise. We were kids together," he +explained, as he climbed back into the upper berth. + +"Guess you were a lucky kid," said the voice below. "She's one in a +thousand, Miss Blanche Macnair!" + + + + +II + +SECOND SIGHT + + +Southampton Water was an ornamental lake dotted with fairy lamps. The +stars above seemed only a far-away reflex of those below; but in their +turn they shimmered on the sleek silken arm of sleeping sea. It was a +midsummer night, lagging a whole season behind its fellows. But already +it was so late that the English passengers on the _Kaiser Fritz_ had +abandoned all thought of catching the last train up to London. + +They tramped the deck in their noisy, shiny, shore-going boots; they +manned the rail in lazy inarticulate appreciation of the nocturne in +blue stippled with green and red and countless yellow lights. Some +delivered themselves of the patriotic platitudes which become the homing +tourist who has seen no foreign land to touch his own. But one who had +seen more than sights and cities, one who had been ten years buried in +the bush, one with such yarns to spin behind those outpost lights of +England, was not even on deck to hail them back into his ken. Achilles +in his tent was no more conspicuous absentee than Cazalet in his cabin +as the _Kaiser Fritz_ steamed sedately up Southampton Water. + +He had finished packing; the stateroom floor was impassable with the +baggage that Cazalet had wanted on the five-weeks' voyage. There was +scarcely room to sit down, but in what there was sat Cazalet like a soul +in torment. All the vultures of the night before, of his dreadful dream, +and of the poignant reminiscences to which his dream had led, might +have been gnawing at his vitals as he sat there waiting to set foot once +more in the land from which a bitter blow had driven him. + +Yet the bitterness might have been allayed by the consciousness that he, +at any rate, had turned it to account. It had been, indeed, the making +of him; thanks to that stern incentive, even some of the sweets of a +deserved success were already his. But there was no hint of complacency +in Cazalet's clouded face and heavy attitude. He looked as if he had not +slept, after all, since his nightmare; almost as if he could not trust +himself to sleep again. His face was pale, even in that torrid zone +between the latitudes protected in the bush by beard and wide-awake. And +he jumped to his feet as suddenly as the screw stopped for the first +time; but that might have been just the curious shock which its +cessation always causes after days at sea. Only the same thing happened +again and yet again, as often as ever the engines paused before the end. +Cazalet would spring up and watch his stateroom door with clenched fists +and haunted eyes. But it was some long time before the door flew open, +and then slammed behind Hilton Toye. + +Toye was in a state of excitement even more abnormal than Cazalet's +nervous despondency, which indeed it prevented him from observing. It +was instantaneously clear that Toye was astounded, thrilled, almost +triumphant, but as yet just drawing the line at that. A newspaper +fluttered in his hand. + +"Second sight?" he ejaculated, as though it were the night before and +Cazalet still shaken by his dream. "I guess you've got it in full +measure, pressed down and running over, Mr. Cazalet!" + +It was a sorry sample of his talk. Hilton Toye did not usually mix the +ready metaphors that nevertheless had to satisfy an inner censor, of +some austerity, before they were allowed to leave those deliberate lips. +As a rule there was dignity in that deliberation; it never for a moment, +or for any ordinary moment, suggested want of confidence, for example. +It could even dignify some outworn modes of transatlantic speech which +still preserved a perpetual freshness in the mouth of Hilton Toye. Yet +now, in his strange excitement, word and tone alike were on the level of +the stage American's. It was not less than extraordinary. + +"You don't mean about--" Cazalet seemed to be swallowing. + +"I do, sir!" cried Hilton Toye. + +"--about Henry Craven?" + +"Sure." + +"Has--something or other--happened to him?" + +"Yep." + +"You don't mean to say he's--dead?" + +"Last Wednesday night!" Toye looked at his paper. "No, I guess I'm +wrong. Seems it happened Wednesday, but he only passed away Sunday +morning." + +Cazalet still sat staring at him--there was not room for two of them on +their feet--but into his heavy stare there came a gleam of leaden +wisdom. "This was Thursday morning," he said, "so I didn't dream of it +when it happened, after all." + +"You dreamed you saw him lying dead, and so he was," said Toye. "The +funeral's been to-day. I don't know, but that seems to me just about the +next nearest thing to seeing the crime perpetrated in a vision." + +"Crime!" cried Cazalet. "What crime?" + +"Murder, sir!" said Hilton Toye. "Wilful, brutal, bloody murder! Here's +the paper; better read it for yourself. I'm glad he wasn't a friend of +yours, or mine either, but it's a bad end even for your worst enemy." + +The paper fluttered in Cazalet's clutch as it had done in Toye's; but +that was as natural as his puzzled frown over the cryptic allusions of a +journal that had dealt fully with the ascertainable facts in previous +issues. Some few emerged between the lines. Henry Craven had received +his fatal injuries on the Wednesday of the previous week. The thing had +happened in his library, at or about half past seven in the evening; but +how a crime, which was apparently a profound mystery, had been timed to +within a minute of its commission did not appear among the latest +particulars. No arrest had been made. No clue was mentioned, beyond the +statement that the police were still searching for a definite instrument +with which it was evidently assumed that the deed had been committed. +There was in fact a close description of an unusual weapon, a special +constable's very special truncheon. It had hung as a cherished trophy on +the library wall, from which it was missing, while the very imprint of a +silver shield, mounted on the thick end of the weapon, was stated to +have been discovered on the scalp of the fractured skull. But that was a +little bit of special reporting, typical of the enterprising sheet that +Toye had procured. The inquest, merely opened on the Monday, had been +adjourned to the day of issue. + +"We must get hold of an evening paper," said Cazalet. "Fancy his own +famous truncheon! He had it mounted and inscribed himself, so that it +shouldn't be forgotten how he'd fought for law and order at Trafalgar +Square! That was the man all over!" + +His voice and manner achieved the excessive indifference which the +English type holds due from itself after any excess of feeling. Toye +also was himself again, his alert mind working keenly yet darkly in his +acute eyes. + +"I wonder if it was a murder?" he speculated. "I bet it wasn't a +deliberate murder." + +"What else could it have been?" + +"Kind of manslaughter. Deliberate murderers don't trust to chance +weapons hanging on their victims' walls." + +"You forget," said Cazalet, "that he was robbed as well." + +"Do they claim that?" said Hilton Toye. "I guess I skipped some. Where +does it say anything about his being robbed?" + +"Here!" Cazalet had scanned the paper eagerly; his finger drummed upon +the place. "'The police,'" he read out, in some sort of triumph, "'have +now been furnished with a full description of the missing watch and +trinkets and the other articles believed to have been taken from the +pockets of the deceased.' What's that but robbery?" + +"You're dead right," said Toye. "I missed that somehow. Yet who in +thunder tracks a man down to rob and murder him in his own home? But +when you've brained a man, because you couldn't keep your hands off him, +you might deliberately do all the rest to make it seem like the work of +thieves." + +Hilton Toye looked a judge of deliberation as he measured his +irrefutable words. He looked something more. Cazalet could not tear his +blue eyes from the penetrating pair that met them with a somber twinkle, +an enlightened gusto, quite uncomfortably suggestive at such a moment. + +"You aren't a detective, by any chance, are you?" cried Cazalet, with +rather clumsy humor. + +"No, sir! But I've often thought I wouldn't mind being one," said Toye, +chuckling. "I rather figure I might do something at it. If things don't +go my way in your old country, and they put up a big enough reward, why, +here's a man I knew and a place I know, and I might have a mind to try +my hand." + +They went ashore together, and to the same hotel at Southampton for the +night. Perhaps neither could have said from which side the initiative +came; but midnight found the chance pair with their legs under the same +heavy Victorian mahogany, devouring cold beef, ham and pickles as +phlegmatically as commercial travelers who had never been off the island +in their lives. Yet surely Cazalet was less depressed than he had been +before landing; the old English ale in a pewter tankard even elicited a +few of those anecdotes and piquant comparisons in which his conversation +was at its best. It was at its worst on general questions, or on +concrete topics not introduced by himself; and into this category, +perhaps not unnaturally, fell such further particulars of the Thames +Valley mystery as were to be found in an evening paper at the inn. They +included a fragmentary report of the adjourned inquest, and the actual +offer of such a reward, by the dead man's firm, for the apprehension of +his murderer, as made Toye's eyes glisten in his sagacious head. + +But Cazalet, though he had skimmed the many-headed column before sitting +down to supper, flatly declined to discuss the tragedy his first night +ashore. + + + + +III + +IN THE TRAIN + + +Discussion was inevitable on the way up to town next morning. + +The silly season was by no means over; a sensational inquest was worth +every inch that it could fill in most of the morning papers; and the two +strange friends, planted opposite each other in the first-class smoker, +traveled inland simultaneously engrossed in a copious report of the +previous day's proceedings at the coroner's court. + +Of solid and significant fact, they learned comparatively little that +they had been unable to gather or deduce the night before. There was the +medical evidence, valuable only as tracing the fatal blow to some such +weapon as the missing truncheon; there was the butler's evidence, +finally timing the commission of the deed to within ten minutes; there +was the head gardener's evidence, confirming and supplementing that of +the butler; and there was the evidence of a footman who had answered the +telephone an hour or two before the tragedy occurred. + +The butler had explained that the dinner-hour was seven thirty; that, +not five minutes before, he had seen his master come down-stairs and +enter the library, where, at seven fifty-five, on going to ask if he had +heard the gong, he had obtained no answer but found the door locked on +the inside; that he had then hastened round by the garden, and in +through the French window, to discover the deceased gentleman lying in +his blood. + +The head gardener, who lived in the lodge, had sworn to having seen a +bareheaded man rush past his windows and out of the gates about the same +hour, as he knew by the sounding of the gong up at the house; they often +heard it at the lodge, in warm weather when the windows were open, and +the gardener swore that he himself had heard it on this occasion. + +The footman appeared to have been less positive as to the time of the +telephone call, thought it was between four and five, but remembered the +conversation very well. The gentleman had asked whether Mr. Craven was +at home, had been told that he was out motoring, asked when he would be +back, told he couldn't say, but before dinner some time, and what name +should he give, whereupon the gentleman had rung off without answering. +The footman thought he was a gentleman, from the way he spoke. But +apparently the police had not yet succeeded in tracing the call. + +"Is it a difficult thing to do?" asked Cazalet, touching on this last +point early in the discussion, which even he showed no wish to avoid +this morning. He had dropped his paper, to find that Toye had already +dropped his, and was gazing at the flying English fields with thoughtful +puckers about his somber eyes. + +"If you ask me," he replied, "I should like to know what wasn't +difficult connected with the telephone system in this country! Why, you +don't have a system, and that's all there is to it. But it's not at that +end they'll put the salt on their man." + +"Which end will it be, then?" + +"The river end. That hat, or cap. Do you see what the gardener says +about the man who ran out bareheaded? That gardener deserves to be +cashiered for not getting a move on him in time to catch that man, even +if he did think he'd only been swiping flowers. But if he went and left +his hat or his cap behind him, that should be good enough in the long +run. It's the very worst thing you _can_ leave. Ever hear of Franz +Müller?" + +Cazalet had not heard of that immortal notoriety, nor did his ignorance +appear to trouble him at all, but it was becoming more and more clear +that Hilton Toye took an almost unhealthy interest in the theory and +practise of violent crime. + +"Franz Müller," he continued, "left his hat behind him, only that and +nothing more, but it brought him to the gallows even though he got over +to the other side first. He made the mistake of taking a slow steamer, +and that's just about the one mistake they never did make at Scotland +Yard. Give them a nice, long, plain-sailing stern-chase and they get +there by bedtime--wireless or no wireless!" + +But Cazalet was in no mind to discuss other crimes, old or new; and he +closed the digression by asserting somewhat roundly that neither hat nor +cap had been left behind in the only case that interested him. + +"Don't be too sure," said Toye. "Even Scotland Yard doesn't show all its +hand at once, in the first inquiry that comes along. They don't give out +any description of the man that ran away, but you bet it's being +circulated around every police office in the United Kingdom." + +Cazalet said they would give it out fast enough if they had it to give. +By the way, he was surprised to see that the head gardener was the same +who had been at Uplands in his father's time; he must be getting an old +man, and no doubt shakier on points of detail than he would be likely to +admit. Cazalet instanced the alleged hearing of the gong as in itself an +unconvincing statement. It was well over a hundred yards from the gates +to the house, and there were no windows to open in the hall where the +gong would be rung. + +He sighed heavily as in his turn he looked out at the luxuriant little +paddocks and the old tiled homesteads after every two or three. But he +was not thinking of the weather-board and corrugated iron strewn so +sparsely over the yellow wilds that he had left behind him. The old +English panorama flew by for granted, as he had taken it before ever he +went out to Australia. It was as though he had never been out at all. + +"I've dreamed of the old spot so often," he said at length. "I'm not +thinking of the night before last--I meant in the bush--and now to think +of a thing like this happening, there, in the old governor's den, of all +places!" + +"Seems like a kind of poetic justice," said Hilton Toye. + +"It does. It is!" cried Cazalet, fetching moist yet fiery eyes in from +the fields. "I said to you the other night that Henry Craven never was a +white man, and I won't unsay it now. Nobody may ever know what he's done +to bring this upon him. But those who really knew the man, and suffered +for it, can guess the kind of thing!" + +"Exactly," murmured Toye, as though he had just said as much himself. +His dark eyes twinkled with deliberation and debate. "How long is it, by +the way, that they gave that clerk and friend of yours?" + +A keen look pressed the startling question; at least, it startled +Cazalet. + +"You mean Scruton? What on earth made you think of him?" + +"Talking of those who suffered for being the dead man's friends, I +guess," said Toye. "Was it fourteen years?" + +"That was it." + +"But I guess fourteen doesn't mean fourteen, ordinarily, if a prisoner +behaves himself?" + +"No, I believe not. In fact, it doesn't." + +"Do you know how much it would mean?" + +"A little more than ten." + +"Then Scruton may be out now?" + +"Just." + +Toye nodded with detestable aplomb. "That gives you something to chew +on," said he. "Of course, I don't say he's our man--" + +"I should think you didn't!" cried Cazalet, white to the lips with +sudden fury. + +Toye looked disconcerted and distressed, but at the same time frankly +puzzled. He apologized none the less readily, with almost ingenious +courtesy and fulness, but he ended by explaining himself in a single +sentence, and that told more than the rest of his straightforward +eloquence put together. + +"If a man had done you down like that, wouldn't you want to kill him the +very moment you came out, Cazalet?" + +The creature of impulse was off at a tangent. "I'd forgive him if he did +it, too!" he exclaimed. "I'd move heaven and earth to save him, guilty +or not guilty. Wouldn't you in my place?" + +"I don't know," said Hilton Toye. "It depends on the place you're in, I +guess!" And the keen dark eyes came drilling into Cazalet's skull like +augers. + +"I thought I told you?" he explained impatiently. "We were in the office +together; he was good to me, winked at the business hours I was inclined +to keep, let me down lighter in every way than I deserved. You may say +it was part of his game. But I take people as I find them. And then, as +I told you, Scruton was ten thousand times more sinned against than +sinning." + +"Are you sure? If you knew it at the time--" + +"I didn't. I told you so the last night." + +"Then it came to you in Australia?" said Toye, with a smile as whimsical +as the suggestion. + +"It did!" cried Cazalet unexpectedly. "In a letter," he added with +hesitation. + +"Well, I mustn't ask questions," said Hilton Toye, and began folding up +his newspaper with even more than his usual deliberation. + +"Oh, I'll tell you!" cried Cazalet ungraciously. "It's my own fault for +telling you so much. It was in a letter from Scruton himself that I +heard the whole thing. I'd written to him--toward the end--suggesting +things. He managed to get an answer through that would never have passed +the prison authorities. And--and that's why I came home just when I +did," concluded Cazalet; "that's why I didn't wait till after shearing. +He's been through about enough, and I've had more luck than I deserved. +I meant to take him back with me, to keep the books on our station, if +you want to know!" The brusk voice trembled. + +Toye let his newspaper slide to the floor. "But that was fine!" he +exclaimed simply. "That's as fine an action as I've heard of in a long +time." + +"If it comes off," said Cazalet in a gloomy voice. + +"Don't you worry. It'll come off. Is he out yet, for sure? I mean, do +you know that he is?" + +"Scruton? Yes--since you press it--he wrote to tell me that he was +coming out even sooner than he expected." + +"Then he can stop out for me," said Hilton Toye. "I guess I'm not +running for that reward!" + + + + +IV + +DOWN THE RIVER + + +At Waterloo the two men parted, with a fair exchange of fitting +speeches, none of which rang really false. And yet Cazalet found himself +emphatically unable to make any plans at all for the next few days; +also, he seemed in two minds now about a Jermyn Street hotel previously +mentioned as his immediate destination; and his step was indubitably +lighter as he went off first of all to the loop-line, to make sure of +some train or other that he might have to take before the day was out. + +In the event he did not take that train or any other; for the new +miracle of the new traffic, the new smell of the horseless streets, and +the newer joys of the newest of new taxicabs, all worked together and so +swiftly upon Cazalet's organism that he had a little colloquy with his +smart young driver instead of paying him in Jermyn Street. He nearly did +pay him off, and with something more than his usual impetuosity, as +either a liar or a fool with no sense of time or space. + +"But that's as quick as the train, my good fellow!" blustered Cazalet. + +"Quicker," said the smart young fellow without dipping his cigarette, +"if you were going by the old Southwestern!" + +The very man, and especially the manners that made or marred him, was +entirely new to Cazalet as a product of the old country. But he had come +from the bush, and he felt as though he might have been back there but +for the smell of petrol and the cry of the motor-horn from end to end +of those teeming gullies of bricks and mortar. + +He had accompanied his baggage just as far as the bureau of the Jermyn +Street hotel. Any room they liked, and he would be back some time before +midnight; that was his card, they could enter his name for themselves. +He departed, pipe in mouth, open knife in one hand, plug tobacco in the +other; and remarks were passed in Jermyn Street as the taxi bounced out +west in ballast. + +But indeed it was too fine a morning to waste another minute indoors, +even to change one's clothes, if Cazalet had possessed any better than +the ones he wore and did not rather glory in his rude attire. He was not +wearing leggings, and he did wear a collar, but he quite saw that even +so he might have cut an ignominious figure on the flags of Kensington +Gore; no, now it was the crowded High Street, and now it was humble +Hammersmith. He had told his smart young man to be sure and go that way. +He had been at St. Paul's school as a boy--with old Venus Potts--and he +wanted to see as many landmarks as he could. This one towered and was +gone as nearly in a flash as a great red mountain could. It seemed to +Cazalet, but perhaps he expected it to seem, that the red was a little +mellower, the ivy a good deal higher on the great warm walls. He noted +the time by the ruthless old clock. It was after one already; he would +miss his lunch. What did that matter? + +Lunch? + +Drunken men do not miss their meals, and Cazalet was simply and +comfortably drunk with the delight of being back. He had never dreamed +of its getting into his head like this; at the time he did not realize +that it had. That was the beauty of his bout. He knew well enough what +he was doing and seeing, but inwardly he was literally blind. Yesterday +was left behind and forgotten like the Albert Memorial, and to-morrow +was still as distant as the sea, if there were such things as to-morrow +and the sea. + +Meanwhile what vivid miles of dazzling life, what a subtle autumn flavor +in the air; how cool in the shadows, how warm in the sun; what a +sparkling old river it was, to be sure; and yet, if those weren't the +first of the autumn tints on the trees in Castlenau. + +There went a funeral, on its way to Mortlake! The taxi overhauled it at +a callous speed. Cazalet just had time to tear off his great soft hat. +It was actually the first funeral he had seen since his own father's; +no wonder his radiance suffered a brief eclipse. But in another moment +he was out on Barnes' Common. Then, in the Lower Richmond Road, the +smart young man began to change speed and crawl, and at once there was +something fresh to think about. The Venture and its team of grays, +Oxford and London, was trying to pass a motor-bus just ahead, and a gray +leader was behaving as though it also had just landed from the bush. +Cazalet thought of a sailing-ship and a dreadnought, and the +sailing-ship thrown up into the wind. Then he wondered how one of Cobb's +bush coaches would have behaved, and thought it might have played the +barge! + +It had been the bicycle age when he went away; now it was the motor age, +and the novelty and contrast were endless to a simple mind under the +influence of forgotten yet increasingly familiar scenes. But nothing was +lost on Cazalet that great morning; even a milk-float entranced him, +itself enchanted, with its tall can turned to gold and silver in the +sun. But now he was on all but holy ground. It was not so holy with +these infernal electric trams; still he knew every inch of it; and now, +thank goodness, he was off the lines at last. + +"Slower!" he shouted to his smart young man. He could not say that no +notice was taken of the command. But a wrought-iron gate on the left, +with a covered way leading up to the house, and the garden (that he +could not see) leading down to the river, and the stables (that he +could) across the road--all that was past and gone in a veritable +twinkling. And though he turned round and looked back, it was only to +get a sightless stare from sightless windows, to catch on a board "_This +Delightful Freehold Residence with Grounds and Stabling_," and to echo +the epithet with an appreciative grunt. + +Five or six minutes later the smart young man was driving really slowly +along a narrow road between patent wealth and blatant semi-gentility; on +the left good grounds, shaded by cedar and chestnut, and on the right a +row of hideous little houses, as pretentious as any that ever let for +forty pounds within forty minutes of Waterloo. + +"This can't be it!" shouted Cazalet. "It can't be here--stop! _Stop!_ I +tell you!" + +A young woman had appeared in one of the overpowering wooden porticoes; +two or three swinging strides were bringing her down the silly little +path to the wicket-gate with the idiotic name; there was no time to +open it before Cazalet blundered up, and shot his hand across to get a +grasp as firm and friendly as he gave. + +"Blanchie!" + +"Sweep!" + +They were their two nursery names, hers no improvement on the proper +monosyllable, and his a rather dubious token of pristine proclivities. +But out both came as if they were children still, and children who had +been just long enough apart to start with a good honest mutual stare. + +"You aren't a bit altered," declared the man of thirty-three, with a +note not entirely tactful in his admiring voice. But his old chum only +laughed. + +"Fiddle!" she cried. "But you're not altered enough. Sweep, I'm +disappointed in you. Where's your beard?" + +"I had it off the other day. I always meant to," he explained, "before +the end of the voyage. I wasn't going to land like a wild man of the +woods, you know!" + +"Weren't you! I call it mean." + +Her scrutiny became severe, but softened again at the sight of his +clutched wide-awake and curiously characterless, shapeless suit. + +"You may well look!" he cried, delighted that she should. "They're awful +old duds, I know, but you would think them a wonder if you saw where +they came from: a regular roadside shanty in a forsaken township at the +back of beyond. Extraordinary cove, the chap who made them; puts in +every stitch himself, learns Shakespeare while he's at it, knew Lindsay +Gordon and Marcus Clarke--" + +"I'm sorry to interrupt," said Blanche, laughing, "but there's your taxi +ticking up twopence every quarter of an hour, and I can't let it go on +without warning you. Where have you come from?" + +He told her with a grin, was roundly reprimanded for his extravagance, +but brazened it out by giving the smart young man a sovereign before her +eyes. After that, she said he had better come in before the neighbors +came out and mobbed him for a millionaire. And he followed her indoors +and up-stairs, into a little new den crowded with some of the big old +things he could remember in a very different setting. But if the room +was small it had a balcony that was hardly any smaller, on top of that +unduly imposing porch; and out there, overlooking the fine grounds +opposite, were basket chairs and a table, hot with the Indian summer +sun. + +"I hope you are not shocked at my abode," said Blanche. "I'm afraid I +can't help it if you are. It's just big enough for Martha and me; you +remember old Martha, don't you? You'll have to come and see her, but +she'll be horribly disappointed about your beard!" + +Coming through the room, stopping to greet a picture and a bookcase +(filling a wall each) as old friends, Cazalet had descried a photograph +of himself with that appendage. He had threatened to take the beastly +thing away, and Blanche had told him he had better not. But it did not +occur to Cazalet that it was the photograph to which Hilton Toye had +referred, or that Toye must have been in this very room to see it. In +these few hours he had forgotten the man's existence, at least in so far +as it associated itself with Blanche Macnair. + +"The others all wanted me to live near them," she continued, "but as no +two of them are in the same county it would have meant a caravan. +Besides, I wasn't going to be transplanted at my age. Here one has +everybody one ever knew, except those who escape by emigrating, simply +at one's mercy on a bicycle. There's more golf and tennis than I can +find time to play; and I still keep the old boat in the old boat-house +at Littleford, because it hasn't let or sold yet, I'm sorry to say." + +"So I saw as I passed," said Cazalet. "That board hit me hard!" + +"The place being empty hits me harder," rejoined the last of the +Macnairs. "It's going down in value every day like all the other +property about here, except this sort. Mind where you throw that match, +Sweep! I don't want you to set fire to my pampas-grass; it's the only +tree I've got!" + +Cazalet laughed; she was making him laugh quite often. But the +pampas-grass, like the rest of the ridiculous little garden in front, +was obscured if not overhung by the balcony on which they sat. And the +subject seemed one to change. + +"It was simply glorious coming down," he said. "I wouldn't swap that +three-quarters of an hour for a bale of wool; but, I say, there are some +changes! The whole show in the streets is different. I could have +spotted it with my eyes and ears shut. They used to smell like a stable, +and now they smell like a lamp. And I used to think the old cabbies +could drive, but their job was child's play to the taximan's! We were at +Hammersmith before I could light my pipe, and almost down here before it +went out! But you can't think how every mortal thing on the way appealed +to me. The only blot was a funeral at Barnes; it seemed such a sin to be +buried on a day like this, and a fellow like me just coming home to +enjoy himself!" + +He had turned grave, but not graver than at the actual moment coming +down. Indeed, he was simply coming down again, for her benefit and his +own, without an ulterior trouble until Blanche took him up with a long +face of her own. + +"We've had a funeral here. I suppose you know?" + +"Yes. I know." + +Her chair creaked as she leaned forward with an enthusiastic solemnity +that would have made her shriek if she had seen herself; but it had no +such effect on Cazalet. + +"I wonder who can have done it!" + +"So do the police, and they don't look much like finding out!" + +"It must have been for his watch and money, don't you think? And yet +they say he had so many enemies!" Cazalet kept silence; but she thought +he winced. "Of course it must have been the man who ran out of the +drive," she concluded hastily. "Where were you when it happened, Sweep?" + +Somewhat hoarsely he was recalling the Mediterranean movements of the +_Kaiser Fritz_, when at the first mention of the vessel's name he was +firmly heckled. + +"Sweep, you _don't_ mean to say you came by a German steamer?" + +"I do. It was the first going, and why should I waste a week? Besides, +you can generally get a cabin to yourself on the German line." + +"So that's why you're here before the end of the month," said Blanche. +"Well, I call it most unpatriotic; but the cabin to yourself was +certainly some excuse." + +"That reminds me!" he exclaimed. "I hadn't it to myself all the way; +there was another fellow in with me from Genoa; and the last night on +board it came out that he knew you!" + +"_Who_ can it have been?" + +"Toye, his name was. Hilton Toye." + +"An American man! Oh, but I know him very well," said Blanche in a tone +both strained and cordial. "He's great fun, Mr. Toye, with his +delightful Americanisms, and the perfectly delightful way he says them!" + +Cazalet puckered like the primitive man he was, when taken at all by +surprise; and that anybody, much less Blanche, should think Toye, of all +people, either "delightful" or "great fun" was certainly a surprise to +him, if it was nothing else. Of course it was nothing else, to his +immediate knowledge; still, he was rather ready to think that Blanche +was blushing, but forgot, if indeed he had been in a fit state to see it +at the time, that she had paid himself the same high compliment across +the gate. On the whole, it may be said that Cazalet was ruffled without +feeling seriously disturbed as to the essential issue which alone leaped +to his mind. + +"Where did you meet the fellow?" he inquired, with the suitable +admixture of confidence and amusement. + +"In the first instance, at Engelberg." + +"Engelberg! Where's that?" + +"Only one of those places in Switzerland where everybody goes nowadays +for what they call winter sports." + +She was not even smiling at his arrogant ignorance; she was merely +explaining one geographical point and another of general information. A +close observer might have thought her almost anxious not to identify +herself too closely with a popular craze. + +"I dare say you mentioned it," said Cazalet, but rather as though he was +wondering why she had not. + +"I dare say I didn't! Everything won't go into an annual letter. It was +the winter before last--I went out with Betty and her husband." + +"And after that he took a place down here?" + +"Yes. Then I met him on the river the following summer, and found he'd +got rooms in one of the Nell Gwynne Cottages, if you call that a place." + +"I see." + +But there was no more to see; there never had been much, but now Blanche +was standing up and gazing out of the balcony into the belt of singing +sunshine between the opposite side of the road and the invisible river +acres away. + +"Why shouldn't we go down to Littleford and get out the boat if you're +really going to make an afternoon of it?" she said. "But you simply must +see Martha first; and while she's making herself fit to be seen, you +must take something for the good of the house. I'll bring it to you on a +lordly tray." + +She brought him siphon, stoppered bottle, a silver biscuit-box of +ancient memories, and left him alone with them some little time; for the +young mistress, like her old retainer in another minute, was simply +dying to make herself more presentable. Yet when she had done so, and +came back like snow, in a shirt and skirt just home from the laundry, +she saw that he did not see the difference. His devouring eyes shone +neither more nor less; but he had also devoured every biscuit in the +box, though he had begun by vowing that he had lunched in town, and +stuck to the fable still. + +Old Martha had known him all his life, but best at the period when he +used to come to nursery tea at Littleford. She declared she would have +known him anywhere as he was, but she simply hadn't recognized him in +that photograph with his beard. + +"I can see where it's been," said Martha, looking him in the lower +temperate zone. "But I'm so glad you've had it off, Mr. Cazalet." + +"There you are, Blanchie!" crowed Cazalet. "You said she'd be +disappointed, but Martha's got better taste." + +"It isn't that, sir," said Martha earnestly. "It's because the dreadful +man who was seen running out of the drive, at your old home, _he_ had a +beard! It's in all the notices about him, and that's what's put me +against them, and makes me glad you've had yours off." + +Blanche turned to him with too ready a smile; but then she was really +not such a great age as she pretended, and she had never been in better +spirits in her life. + +"You hear, Sweep! I call it rather lucky for you that you were--" + +But just then she saw his face, and remembered the things that had been +said about Henry Craven by the Cazalets' friends, even ten years ago, +when she really had been a girl. + + + + +V + +AN UNTIMELY VISITOR + + +She really was one still, for in these days it is an elastic term, and +in Blanche's case there was no apparent reason why it should ever cease +to apply, or to be applied by every decent tongue except her own. If, +however, it be conceded that she herself had reached the purely mental +stage of some self-consciousness on the point of girlhood, it can not be +too clearly stated that it was the only point in which Blanche Macnair +had ever been self-conscious in her life. + +Much the best tennis-player among the ladies of the neighborhood, she +drove an almost unbecomingly long ball at golf, and never looked better +than when paddling her old canoe, or punting in the old punt. And yet, +this wonderful September afternoon, she did somehow look even better +than at either or any of those congenial pursuits, and that long before +they reached the river; in the empty house, which had known her as baby, +child and grown-up girl, to the companion of some part of all three +stages, she looked a more lustrous and a lovelier Blanche than he +remembered even of old. + +But she was not really lovely in the least; that also must be put beyond +the pale of misconception. Her hair was beautiful, and perhaps her skin, +and, in some lights, her eyes; the rest was not. It was yellow hair, not +golden, and Cazalet would have given all he had about him to see it down +again as in the oldest of old days; but there was more gold in her +skin, for so the sun had treated it; and there was even hint or glint +(in certain lights, be it repeated) of gold mingling with the pure hazel +of her eyes. But in the dusty shadows of the empty house, moving like a +sunbeam across its bare boards, standing out against the discolored +walls in the place of remembered pictures not to be compared with her, +it was there that she was all golden and still a girl. + +They poked their noses into the old bogy-hole under the nursery stairs; +they swung the gate at the head of the next flight; they swore to +finger-marks on the panels that were all the walls of the top story, and +they had a laugh in every corner, childish crimes to reconstruct, quite +bitter battles to fight over again, but never a lump in either throat +that the other could have guessed was there. And so out upon the leafy +lawn, shelving abruptly to the river; round first, however, to the +drying-green where the caretakers' garments were indeed drying +unashamed; but they knew each other well enough to laugh aloud, had +picked each other up much farther back than the point of parting ten +years ago, almost as far as the days of mixed cricket with a toy set, on +that very green. + +Then there was the poor old greenhouse, sagging in every slender timber, +broken as to every other cobwebbed pane, empty and debased within; they +could not bring themselves to enter here. + +Last of all there was the summer schoolroom over the boat-house, quite +apart from the house itself; scene of such safe yet reckless revels; in +its very aura late Victorian! + +It lay hidden in ivy at the end of a now neglected path; the +bow-windows overlooking the river were framed in ivy, like three matted, +whiskered, dirty, happy faces; one, with its lower sash propped open by +a broken plant-pot, might have been grinning a toothless welcome to two +once leading spirits of the place. + +Cazalet whittled a twig and wedged that sash up altogether; then he sat +himself on the sill, his long legs inside. But his knife had reminded +him of his plug tobacco. And his plug tobacco took him as straight back +to the bush as though the unsound floor had changed under their feet +into a magic carpet. + +"You simply have it put down to the man's account in the station books. +Nobody keeps ready money up at the bush, not even the price of a plug +like this; but the chap I'm telling you about (I can see him now, with +his great red beard and freckled fists) he swore I was charging him for +half a pound more than he'd ever had. I was station storekeeper, you +see; it was quite the beginning of things, and I'd have had to pay the +few bob myself, and be made to look so small that I shouldn't have had a +soul to call my own on the run. So I fought him for the difference; we +fought for twenty minutes behind the wood-heap; then he gave me best, +but I had to turn in till I could see again." + +"You don't mean that he--" + +Blanche had looked rather disgusted the moment before; now she was all +truculent suspense and indignation. + +"Beat me?" he cried. "Good Lord, no; but there was none too much in it." + +Fires died down in her hazel eyes, lay lambent as soft moonlight, +flickered into laughter before he had seen the fire. + +"I'm afraid you're a very dangerous person," said Blanche. + +"You've got to be," he assured her; "it's the only way. Don't take a +word from anybody, unless you mean him to wipe his boots on you. I soon +found that out. I'd have given something to have learned the noble art +before I went out. Did I ever tell you how it was I first came across +old Venus Potts?" + +He had told her at great length, to the exclusion of about every other +topic, in the second of the annual letters; and throughout the series +the inevitable name of Venus Potts had seldom cropped up without some +allusion to that Homeric encounter. But it was well worth while having +it all over again with the intricate and picaresque embroidery of a +tongue far mightier than the pen hitherto employed upon the incident. +Poor Blanche had almost to hold her nose over the primary cause of +battle; but the dialogue was delightful, and Cazalet himself made a most +gallant and engaging figure as he sat on the sill and reeled it out. He +had always been a fluent teller of any happening, and Blanche a ready +commentator, capable of raising the general level of the entertainment +at any moment. But after all these centuries it was fun enough to listen +as long as he liked to go on; and perhaps she saw that he had more scope +where they were than he could have had in the boat, or it may have been +an unrealized spell that bound them both to their bare old haunt; but +there they were a good twenty minutes later, and old Venus Potts was +still on the magic _tapis_, though Cazalet had dropped his boasting for +a curiously humble, eager and yet ineffectual vein. + +"Old Venus Potts!" he kept ejaculating. "You couldn't help liking him. +And he'd like you, my word!" + +"Is his wife nice?" Blanche wanted to know; but she was looking so +intently out her window, at the opposite end of the bow to Cazalet's, +that a man of the wider world might have thought of something else to +talk about. + +Out her window she looked past a willow that had been part of the old +life, in the direction of an equally typical silhouette of patient +anglers anchored in a punt; they had not raised a rod between them +during all this time that Blanche had been out in Australia; but as a +matter of fact she never saw them, since, vastly to the credit of +Cazalet's descriptive powers, she was out in Australia still. + +"Nelly Potts?" he said. "Oh, a jolly good sort; you'd be awful pals." + +"Should we?" said Blanche, just smiling at her invisible anglers. + +"I know you would," he assured her with immense conviction. "Of course +she can't do the things you do; but she can ride, my word! So she ought +to, when she's lived there all her life. The rooms aren't much, but the +verandas are what count most; they're better than any rooms. There are +two distinct ends to the station--it's like two houses; but of course +the barracks were good enough just for me." + +She knew about the bachelors' barracks; the annual letter had been +really very full; and then she was still out there, cultivating Nelly +Potts on a very deep veranda, though her straw hat and straw hair +remained in contradictory evidence against a very dirty window on the +Middlesex bank of the Thames. It was a shame of the September sun to +show the dirt as it was doing; not only was there a great steady pool of +sunlight on the unspeakable floor, but a doddering reflection from the +river on the disreputable ceiling. Cazalet looked rather desperately +from one to the other, and both the calm pool and the rough were broken +by shadows, one more impressionistic than the other, of a straw hat over +a stack of straw hair, that had not gone out to Australia--yet. + +And of course just then a step sounded outside somewhere on some gravel. +Confound those caretakers! What were _they_ doing, prowling about? + +"I say, Blanchie!" he blurted out. "I do believe you'd like it out +there, a sportswoman like you! I believe you'd take to it like a duck to +water." + +He had floundered to his feet as well. He was standing over her, +feeling his way like a great fatuous coward, so some might have thought. +But it really looked as though Blanche was not attending to what he did +say; yet neither was she watching her little anglers stamped in jet upon +a silvery stream, nor even seeing any more of Nelly Potts in the +Australian veranda. She had come home from Australia, and come in from +the river, and she was watching the open door at the other end of the +old schoolroom, listening to those confounded steps coming nearer and +nearer--and Cazalet was gazing at her as though he really had said +something that deserved an answer. + +"Why, Miss Blanche!" cried a voice. "And your old lady-in-waiting +figured I should find you flown!" + +Hilton Toye was already a landsman and a Londoner from top to toe. He +was perfectly dressed--for Bond Street--and his native simplicity of +bearing and address placed him as surely and firmly in the present +picture. He did not look the least bit out of it. But Cazalet did, in an +instant; his old bush clothes changed at once into a merely shabby suit +of despicable cut; the romance dropped out of them and their wearer, as +he stood like a trussed turkey-cock, and watched a bunch of hothouse +flowers presented to the lady with a little gem of a natural, courteous, +and yet characteristically racy speech. + +To the lady, mark you; for she was one, on the spot; and Cazalet was a +man again, and making a mighty effort to behave himself because the hour +of boy and girl was over. + +"Mr. Cazalet," said Toye, "I guess you want to know what in thunder I'm +doing on your tracks so soon. It's hog-luck, sir, because I wanted to +see you quite a lot, but I never thought I'd strike you right here. Did +you hear the news?" + +"No! What?" + +There was no need to inquire as to the class of news; the immediate past +had come back with Toye into Cazalet's life; and even in Blanche's +presence, even in her schoolroom, the old days had flown into their +proper place and size in the perspective. + +"They've made an arrest," said Toye; and Cazalet nodded as though he had +quite expected it, which set Blanche off trying to remember something he +had said at the other house; but she had not succeeded when she noticed +the curious pallor of his chin and forehead. + +"Scruton?" he just asked. + +"Yes, sir! This morning," said Hilton Toye. + +"You don't mean _the_ poor man?" cried Blanche, looking from one to the +other. + +"Yes, he does," said Cazalet gloomily. He stared out at the river, +seeing nothing in his turn, though one of the anglers was actually busy +with his reel. + +"But I thought Mr. Scruton was still--" Blanche remembered him, +remembered dancing with him; she did not like to say, "in prison." + +"He came out the other day," sighed Cazalet. "But how like the police +all over! Give a dog a bad name, and trust them to hunt it down and +shoot it at sight!" + +"I judge it's not so bad as all that in this country," said Hilton Toye. +"That's more like the police theory about Scruton, I guess, bar drawing +the bead." + +"When did you hear of it?" said Cazalet. + +"It was on the tape at the Savoy when I got there. So I made an +inquiry, and I figured to look in at the Kingston Court on my way to +call upon Miss Blanche. You see, I was kind of interested in all you'd +told me about the case." + +"Well?" + +"Well, that was my end of the situation. As luck and management would +have it between them, I was in time to hear your man--" + +"Not my man, please! You thought of him yourself," said Cazalet sharply. + +"Well, anyway, I was in time to hear the proceedings opened against him. +They were all over in about a minute. He was remanded till next week." + +"How did he look?" and, "Had he a beard?" demanded Cazalet and Blanche +simultaneously. + +"He looked like a sick man," said Toye, with something more than his +usual deliberation in answering or asking questions. "Yes, Miss +Blanche, he had a beard worthy of a free citizen." + +"They let them grow one, if they like, before they come out," said +Cazalet, with the nod of knowledge. + +"Then I guess he was a wise man not to take it off," rejoined Hilton +Toye. "That would only prejudice his case, if it's going to be one of +identity, with that head gardener playing lead in the witness-stand." + +"Old Savage!" snorted Cazalet. "Why, he was a dotard in our time; they +couldn't hang a dog on his evidence!" + +"Still," said Blanche, "I'd rather have it than circumstantial evidence, +wouldn't you, Mr. Toye?" + +"No, Miss Blanche, I would not," replied Toye, with unhesitating candor. +"The worst evidence in the world, in my opinion, and I've given the +matter some thought, is the evidence of identity." He turned to Cazalet, +who had betrayed a quickened interest in his views. "Shall I tell you +why? Think how often you're not so sure if you have seen a man before or +if you never have! You kind of shrink from nodding, or else you nod +wrong; if you didn't ever have that feeling, then you're not like any +other man I know." + +"I have!" cried Cazalet. "I've had it all my life, even in the wilds; +but I never thought of it before." + +"Think of it now," said Toye, "and you'll see there may be flaws in the +best evidence of identity that money can buy. But circumstantial +evidence can't lie, Miss Blanche, if you get enough of it. If the links +fit in, to prove that a certain person was in a certain place at a +certain time, I guess that's worth all the oaths of all the +eye-witnesses that ever saw daylight!" + +Cazalet laughed harshly, as for no apparent reason he led the way into +the garden. "Mr. Toye's made a study of these things," he fired over his +shoulder. "He should have been a Sherlock Holmes, and rather wishes he +was one!" + +"Give me time," said Toye, laughing. "I may come along that way yet." + +Cazalet faced him in a frame of tangled greenery. "You told me you +wouldn't!" + +"I did, sir, but that was before they put salt on this poor old crook. +If you're right, and he's not the man, shouldn't you say that rather +altered the situation?" + + + + +VI + +VOLUNTARY SERVICE + + +"And why do you think he can't have done it?" + +Cazalet had trundled the old canoe over the rollers, and Blanche was +hardly paddling in the glassy strip alongside the weir. Big drops +clustered on her idle blades, and made tiny circles as they met +themselves in the shining mirror. But below the lock there had been +something to do, and Blanche had done it deftly and silently, with +almost equal capacity and grace. It had given her a charming flush and +sparkle; and, what with the sun's bare hand on her yellow hair, she now +looked even bonnier than indoors, yet not quite, quite such a girl. But +then every bit of the boy had gone out of Cazalet. So that hour stolen +from the past was up forever. + +"Why do the police think the other thing?" he retorted. "What have they +got to go on? That's what I want to know. I agree with Toye in one +thing." Blanche looked up quickly. "I wouldn't trust old Savage an inch. +I've been thinking about him and his precious evidence. Do you realize +that it's quite dark now soon after seven? It was pretty thick saying +his man was bareheaded, with neither hat nor cap left behind to prove +it! Yet now it seems he's put a beard to him, and next we shall have the +color of his eyes!" + +Blanche laughed at his vigor of phrase; this was more like the old, +hot-tempered, sometimes rather overbearing Sweep. Something had made him +jump to the conclusion that Scruton could not possibly have killed Mr. +Craven, whatever else he might have done in days gone by. So it simply +_was_ impossible, and anybody who took the other side, or had a word to +say for the police, as a force not unknown to look before it leaped, +would have to reckon henceforth with Sweep Cazalet. + +Mr. Toye already had reckoned with him, in a little debate begun outside +the old summer schoolroom at Littleford, and adjourned rather than +finished at the iron gate into the road. In her heart of hearts Blanche +could not say that Cazalet had the best of the argument, except, indeed, +in the matter of heated emphasis and scornful asseveration. It was +difficult, however, to know what line he really took; for while he +scouted the very notion of uncorroborated identification by old Savage, +he discredited with equal warmth all Toye's contentions on behalf of +circumstantial evidence. Toye had advanced a general principle with +calm ability, but Cazalet could not be shifted from the particular +position he was so eager to defend, and would only enter into abstract +questions to beg them out of hand. + +Blanche rather thought that neither quite understood what the other +meant; but she could not blink the fact that the old friend had neither +the dialectical mind nor the unfailing courtesy of the new. That being +so, with her perception she might have changed the subject; but she +could see that Cazalet was thinking of nothing else; and no wonder, +since they were approaching the scene of the tragedy and his own old +home, with each long dip of her paddle. + +It had been his own wish to start upstream; but she could see the +wistful pain in his eyes as they fell once more upon the red turrets +and the smooth green lawn of Uplands; and she neither spoke nor looked +at him again until he spoke to her. + +"I see they've got the blinds down still," he said detachedly. "What's +happened to Mrs. Craven?" + +"I hear she went into a nursing home before the funeral." + +"Then there's nobody there?" + +"It doesn't look as if there was, does it?" said poor Blanche. + +"I expect we should find Savage somewhere. Would you very much mind, +Blanche? I should rather like--if it was just setting foot--with you--" + +But even that effective final pronoun failed to bring any buoyancy back +into his voice; for it was not in the least effective as he said it, and +he no longer looked her in the face. But this all seemed natural to +Blanche, in the manifold and overlapping circumstances of the case. She +made for the inlet at the upper end of the lawn. And her prompt +unquestioning acquiescence shamed Cazalet into further and franker +explanation, before he could let her land to please him. + +"You don't know how I feel this!" he exclaimed quite miserably. "I mean +about poor old Scruton; he's gone through so much as it is, whatever he +may have done to deserve it long ago. And he wasn't the only one, or the +worst; some day I'll tell you how I know, but you may take it from me +that's so. The real villain's gone to his account. I won't pretend I'm +sorry for him. _De mortuis_ doesn't apply if you've got to invent the +_bonum_! But Scruton--after ten years--only think of it! Is it +conceivable that he should go and do a thing like this the very moment +he gets out? I ask you, is it even conceivable?" + +He asked her with something of the ferocity with which he had turned on +Toye for suggesting that the police might have something up their +sleeves, and be given a chance. But Blanche understood him. And now she +showed herself golden to the core, almost as an earnest of her fitness +for the fires before her. + +"Poor fellow," she cried, "he has a friend in you, at any rate! And I'll +help you to help him, if there's any way I can?" + +He clutched her hand, but only as he might have clutched a man's. + +"You can't do anything; but I won't forget that," he almost choked. "I +meant to stand by him in a very different way. He'd been down to the +depths, and I'd come up a bit; then he was good to me as a lad, and it +was my father's partner who was the ruin of him. I seemed to owe him +something, and now--now I'll stand by him whatever happens and--whatever +_has_ happened!" + +Then they landed in the old, old inlet. Cazalet knew every knot in the +post to which he tied Blanche's canoe. + +It was a very different place, this Uplands, from poor old Littleford on +the lower reach. The grounds were five or six acres instead of about +one, and a house in quite another class stood farther back from the +river and very much farther from the road. + +The inlet began the western boundary, which continued past the +boat-house in the shape of a high hedge, a herbaceous border (not what +it had been in the old days), and a gravel path. This path was screened +from the lawn by a bank of rhododendrons, as of course were the back +yard and kitchen premises, past which it led into the front garden, +eventually debouching into the drive. It was the path along which +Cazalet led the way this afternoon, and Blanche at his heels was so +struck by something that she could not help telling him he knew his way +very well. + +"Every inch of it!" he said bitterly. "But so I ought, if anybody does." + +"But these rhododendrons weren't here in your time. They're the one +improvement. Don't you remember how the path ran round to the other end +of the yard? This gate into it wasn't made." + +"No more it was," said Cazalet, as they came up to the new gate on the +right. It was open, and looking through they could see where the old +gateway had been bricked. The rhododendrons topped the yard wall at +that point, masking it from the lawn, and making on the whole an +improvement of which anybody but a former son of the house might have +taken more account. + +He said he could see no other change. He pretended to recognize the very +blinds that were down and flapping in the kitchen windows facing west. +But for the fact that these windows were wide open, the whole place +seemed as deserted as Littleford; but just past the windows, and flush +with them, was the tradesmen's door, and the two trespassers were barely +abreast of it when this door opened and disgorged a man. + +The man was at first sight a most incongruous figure for the back +premises of any house, especially in the country. He was tall, rather +stout, very powerfully built and rather handsome in his way; his +top-hat shone like his patent-leather boots, and his gray cutaway suit +hung well in front and was duly creased as to the trousers; yet not for +one moment was this personage in the picture, in the sense in which +Hilton Toye had stepped into the Littleford picture. + +"May I ask what you're doing here?" he demanded bluntly of the male +intruder. + +"No harm, I hope," replied Cazalet, smiling, much to his companion's +relief. She had done him an injustice, however, in dreading an explosion +when they were both obviously in the wrong, and she greatly admired the +tone he took so readily. "I know we've no business here whatever; but it +happens to be my old home, and I only landed from Australia last night. +I'm on the river for the first time, and simply had to have a look +round." + +The other big man had looked far from propitiated by the earlier of +these remarks, but the closing sentences had worked a change. + +"Are you young Mr. Cazalet?" he cried. + +"I am, or rather I was," laughed Cazalet, still on his mettle. + +"You've read all about the case then, I don't mind betting!" exclaimed +the other with a jerk of his topper toward the house behind him. + +"I've read all I found in the papers last night and this morning, and +such arrears as I've been able to lay my hands on," said Cazalet. "But, +as I tell you, my ship only got in from Australia last night, and I came +round all the way in her. There was nothing in the English papers when +we touched at Genoa." + +"I see, I see." The man was still looking him up and down. "Well, Mr. +Cazalet, my name's Drinkwater, and I'm from Scotland Yard. I happen to +be in charge of the case." + +"I guessed as much," said Cazalet, and this surprised Blanche more than +anything else from him. Yet nothing about him was any longer like the +Sweep of other days, or of any previous part of that very afternoon. And +this was also easy to understand on reflection; for if he meant to stand +by the hapless Scruton, guilty or not guilty, he could not perhaps begin +better than by getting on good terms with the police. But his ready +tact, and in that case cunning, were certainly a revelation to one who +had known him marvelously as boy and youth. + +"I mustn't ask questions," he continued, "but I see you're still +searching for things, Mr. Drinkwater." + +"Still minding our own job," said Mr. Drinkwater genially. They had +sauntered on with him to the corner of the house, and seen a bowler hat +bobbing in the shrubbery down the drive. Cazalet laughed like a man. + +"Well, I needn't tell you I know every inch of the old place," he said; +"that is, barring alterations," as Blanche caught his eye. "But I expect +this search is harrowed, rather?" + +"Rather," said Mr. Drinkwater, standing still in the drive. He had also +taken out a presentation gold half-hunter, suitably inscribed in memory +of one of his more bloodless victories. But Cazalet could always be +obtuse, and now he refused to look an inch lower than the +detective-inspector's bright brown eyes. + +"There's just one place that's occurred to me, Mr. Drinkwater, that +perhaps may not have occurred to you." + +"Where's that, Mr. Cazalet?" + +"In the room where--the room itself." + +Mr. Drinkwater's long stare ended in an indulgent smile. "You can show +me if you like," said he indifferently. "But I suppose you know we've +got the man?" + + + + +VII + +AFTER MICHELANGELO + + +"I was thinking of his cap," said Cazalet, but only as they returned to +the tradesmen's door, and just as Blanche put in her word, "What about +me?" + +Mr. Drinkwater eyed the trim white figure standing in the sun. "The more +the merrier!" his grim humor had it. "I dare say you'll be able to teach +us a thing or two as well, miss." + +She could not help nudging Cazalet in recognition of this shaft. But +Cazalet did not look round; he had now set foot in his old home. + +It was all strangely still and inactive, as though domestic animation +had been suspended indefinitely. Yet the open kitchen door revealed a +female form in mufti; a sullen face looked out of the pantry as they +passed; and through the old green door (only now it was a red one) they +found another bowler hat bent over a pink paper at the foot of the +stairs. There was a glitter of eyes under the bowler's brim as Mr. +Drinkwater conducted his friends into the library. + +The library was a square room of respectable size, but very close and +dim with the one French window closed and curtained. But Mr. Drinkwater +shut the door as well, and added indescribably to the lighting and +atmospheric effects by switching on all the electric lamps; they burned +sullenly in the partial daylight, exposed as thin angry bunches of +red-hot wire in dusty bulbs. + +The electric light had been put in by the Cravens; all the other +fixtures in the room were as Cazalet remembered them. The bookshelves +contained different books, and now there were no busts on top. Certain +cupboards, grained and varnished in Victorian days, were undeniably +improved by being enameled white. + +But the former son of the house gave himself no time to waste in +sentimental comparisons. He tapped a pair of mahogany doors, like those +of a wardrobe let into the wall. + +"Have you looked in here?" demanded Cazalet in yet another key. His air +was almost authoritative now. Blanche could not understand it, but the +experienced Mr. Drinkwater smiled his allowances for a young fellow on +his native heath, after more years in the wilderness than were good for +young fellows. + +"What's the use of looking in a cigar cupboard?" that dangerous man of +the world made mild inquiry. + +"Cigar cupboard!" echoed Cazalet in disgust. "Did he really only use it +for his cigars?" + +"A cigar cupboard," repeated Drinkwater, "and locked up at the time it +happened. What was it, if I may ask, in Mr. Cazalet's time?" + +"I remember!" came suddenly from Blanche; but Cazalet only said, "Oh, +well, if you know it was locked there's an end of it." + +Drinkwater went to the door and summoned his subordinate. "Just fetch +that chap from the pantry, Tom," said he; but the sullen sufferer from +police rule took his time, in spite of them, and was sharply rated when +he appeared. + +"I thought you told me this was a cigar cupboard?" continued Drinkwater, +in the browbeating tone of his first words to Cazalet outside. + +"So it is," said the man. + +"Then where's the key?" + +"How should I know? _I_ never kept it!" cried the butler, crowing over +his oppressor for a change. "He would keep it on his own bunch; find his +watch, and all the other things that were missing from his pockets when +your men went through 'em, and you may find his keys, too!" + +Drinkwater gave his man a double signal; the door slammed on a petty +triumph for the servants' hall; but now both invaders remained within. + +"Try your hand on it, Tom," said the superior officer. "I'm a free-lance +here," he explained somewhat superfluously to the others, as Tom applied +himself to the lock in one mahogany door. "Man's been drinking, I +should say. He'd better be careful, because I don't take to him, drunk +or sober. I'm not surprised at his master not trusting him. It's just +possible that the place _was_ open--he might have been getting out his +cigars before dinner--but I can't say I think there's much in it, Mr. +Cazalet." + +It was open again--broken open--before many minutes; and certainly there +was not much in it, to be seen, except cigars. Boxes of these were +stacked on what might have been meant for a shallow desk (the whole +place was shallow as the wardrobe that the doors suggested, but lighted +high up at one end by a little barred window of its own) and according +to Cazalet a desk it had really been. His poor father ought never to +have been a business man; he ought to have been a poet. Cazalet said +this now as simply as he had said it to Hilton Toye on board the +_Kaiser Fritz_. Only he went rather farther for the benefit of the +gentlemen from Scotland Yard, who took not the faintest interest in the +late Mr. Cazalet, beyond poking their noses into his diminutive sanctum +and duly turning them up at what they saw. + +"He used to complain that he was never left in peace on Saturdays and +Sundays, which of course were his only quiet times for writing," said +the son, elaborating his tale with filial piety. "So once when I'd been +trying to die of scarlet fever, and my mother brought me back from +Hastings after she'd had me there some time, the old governor told us +he'd got a place where he could disappear from the district at a +moment's notice and yet be back in another moment if we rang the gong. I +fancy he'd got to tell her where it was, pretty quick; but I only found +out for myself by accident. Years afterward, he told me he'd got the +idea from Jean Ingelow's place in Italy somewhere." + +"It's in Florence," said Blanche, laughing. "I've been there and seen +it, and it's the exact same thing. But you mean Michelangelo, Sweep!" + +"Oh, do I?" he said serenely. "Well, I shall never forget how I found +out its existence." + +"No more shall I. You told me all about it at the time, as a terrific +secret, and I may tell you that I've kept it from that day to this!" + +"You would," he said simply. "But think of having the nerve to pull up +the governor's floor! It only shows what a boy will do. I wonder if the +hole's there still!" + +Now all the time the planetary detective had been watching his +satellite engaged in an attempt to render the damage done to the +mahogany doors a little less conspicuous. Neither appeared to be taking +any further interest in the cigar cupboard, or paying the slightest +attention to Cazalet's reminiscences. But Mr. Drinkwater happened to +have heard every word, and in the last sentence there was one that +caused him to prick up his expert ears instinctively. + +"What's that about a hole?" said he, turning round. + +"I was reminding Miss Macnair how the place first came to be--" + +"Yes, yes. But what about some hole in the floor?" + +"I made one myself with one of those knives that contain all sorts of +things, including a saw. It was one Saturday afternoon in the summer +holidays. I came in here from the garden as my father went out by that +door into the hall, leaving one of these mahogany doors open by mistake. +It was the chance of my life; in I slipped to have a look. He came back +for something, saw the very door you've broken standing ajar, and shut +it without looking in. So there I was in a nice old trap! I simply +daren't call out and give myself away. There was a bit of loose oilcloth +on the floor--" + +"There is still," said the satellite, pausing in his task. + +"I moved the oilcloth, in the end; howked up one end of the board +(luckily they weren't groove and tongue), sawed through the next one to +it, had it up, too, and got through into the foundations, leaving +everything much as I had found it. The place is so small that the +oilcloth was obliged to fall in place if it fell anywhere. But I had +plenty of time, because my people had gone in to dinner." + +"You ought to have been a burglar, sir," said Mr. Drinkwater ironically. +"So you covered up a sin with a crime, like half the gentlemen who go +through my hands for the first and last time! But how did you get out of +the foundations?" + +"Oh, that was as easy as pie; I'd often explored them. Do you remember +the row I got into, Blanche, for taking you with me once and simply +ruining your frock?" + +"I remember the frock!" said Blanche. + +It was her last contribution to the conversation; immediate developments +not only put an end to the further exchange of ancient memories, but +rendered it presently impossible by removing Cazalet from the scene with +the two detectives. Almost without warning, as in the harlequinade of +which they might have been the rascal heroes, all three disappeared down +the makeshift trap-door cut by one of them as a schoolboy in his +father's floor; and Blanche found herself in sole possession of the +stage, a very envious Columbine, indeed! + +She hardly even knew how it happened. The satellite must have popped +back into the Michelangelo cigar cupboard. He might have called to Mr. +Drinkwater, but the only summons that Blanche could remember hearing was +almost a sharp one from Drinkwater to Cazalet. A lot of whispering +followed in the little place; it was so small that she never saw the +hole until it had engulfed two of the trio; the third explorer, Mr. +Drinkwater himself, had very courteously turned her out of the library +before following the others. And he had said so very little beforehand +for her to hear, and so quickly prevented Cazalet from saying anything +at all, that she simply could not think what any of them were doing +under the floor. + +Under her very feet she heard them moving as she waited a bit in the +hall; then she left the house by way of the servants' quarters, of +course without holding any communication with those mutineers, and only +indignant that Mr. Drinkwater should have requested her not to do so. + +It was a long half-hour that followed for Blanche Macnair, but she +passed it characteristically, and not in morbid probings of the many +changes that had come over one young man in less than the course of a +summer's day. He was excited at getting back, he had stumbled into a +still more exciting situation, so no wonder he was one thing one moment +and another the next. That was all that Blanche allowed herself to think +of Sweep Cazalet--just then. + +She turned her wholesome mind to dogs, which in some ways she knew +better and trusted further than men. She had, of course, a dog of her +own, but it happened to be on a visit to the doctor or no doubt it would +have been in the way all the afternoon. But there was a dog at Uplands, +and as yet she had seen nothing of him; he lived in a large kennel in +the yard, for he was a large dog and rather friendless. But Blanche knew +him by sight, and had felt always sorry for him. + +The large kennel was just outside the back door, which was at the top of +the cellar steps and at the bottom of two or three leading into the +scullery; but Blanche, of course, went round by the garden. She found +the poor old dog quite disconsolate in a more canine kennel in a corner +of the one that was really worthy of the more formidable carnivora. +There was every sign of his being treated as the dangerous dog that +Blanche, indeed, had heard he was; the outer bars were further protected +by wire netting, which stretched like a canopy over the whole cage; but +Blanche let herself in with as little hesitation as she proceeded to +beard the poor brute in his inner lair. And he never even barked at her; +he just lay whimpering with his tearful nose between his two front paws, +as though his dead master had not left him to the servants all his life. + +Blanche coaxed and petted him until she almost wept herself; then +suddenly and without warning the dog showed his worst side. Out he +leaped from wooden sanctuary, almost knocking her down, and barking +horribly, but not at Blanche. She followed his infuriated eyes; and the +back doorway framed a dusty and grimy figure, just climbing into full +length on the cellar stairs, which Blanche had some difficulty in +identifying with that of Cazalet. + +"Well, you really _are_ a Sweep!" she cried when she had slipped out +just in time, and the now savage dog was still butting and clawing at +his bars. "How did you come out, and where are the enemy?" + +"The old way," he answered. "I left them down there." + +"And what did you find?" + +"I'll tell you later. I can't hear my voice for that infernal dog." + +The dreadful barking followed them out of the yard, and round to the +right, past the tradesmen's door, to the verge of the drive. Here they +met an elderly man in a tremendous hurry--an unstable dotard who +instantly abandoned whatever purpose he had formed, and came to anchor +in front of them with rheumy eyes and twitching wrinkles. + +"Why, if that isn't Miss Blanche!" he quavered. "Do you hear our Roy, +miss? I ha'n't heard that go on like that since the night that +happened!" + +Then Cazalet introduced himself to the old gardener whom he had known +all his life; and by rights the man should have wept outright, or else +emitted a rustic epigram laden with wise humor. But old Savage hailed +from silly Suffolk, and all his life he had belied his surname, but +never the alliterative libel on his native country. He took the +wanderer's return very much as a matter of course, very much as though +he had never been away at all, and was demonstrative only in his +further use of the East Anglian pronoun. + +"That's a long time since we fared to see you, Mus' Walter," said he; +"that's a right long time! And now here's a nice kettle of fish for you +to find! But I seen the man, Mus' Walter, and we'll bring that home to +him, never you fear!" + +"Are you sure that you saw him?" asked Blanche, already under Cazalet's +influence on this point. + +Savage looked cautiously toward the house before replying; then he +lowered his voice dramatically. "Sure, Miss Blanche. Why, I see him that +night as plain as I fare to see Mus' Walter now!" + +"I should have thought it was too dark to see anybody properly," said +Blanche, and Cazalet nodded vigorously to himself. + +"Dark, Miss Blanche? Why, that was broad daylight, and if that wasn't +there were the lodge lights on to see him by!" His stage voice fell a +sepulchral semitone. "But I see him again at the station this very +afternoon, I did! I promised not to talk about that--you'll keep that a +secret if I tell 'e somethin'?--but I picked him out of half a dozen at +the first time of askin'!" + +Savage said this with a pleased and vacuous grin, looking Cazalet full +in the face; his rheumy eyes were red as the sunset they faced; and +Cazalet drew a deep breath as Blanche and he turned back toward the +river. + +"First time of prompting, I expect!" he whispered. "But there's hope if +Savage is their strongest witness." + +"Only listen to that dog," said Blanche, as they passed the yard. + + + + +VIII + +FINGER-PRINTS + + +Hilton Toye was the kind of American who knew London as well as most +Londoners, and some other capitals a good deal better than their +respective citizens of corresponding intelligence. His travels were +mysteriously but enviably interwoven with business; he had an air of +enjoying himself, and at the same time making money to pay for his +enjoyment, wherever he went. His hotel days were much the same all over +Europe: many appointments, but abundant leisure. As, however, he never +spoke about his own affairs unless they were also those of the +listener--and not always then--half his acquaintances had no idea how +he made his money, and the other half wondered how he spent his time. Of +his mere interests, which were many, Toye made no such secret; but it +was quite impossible to deduce a main industry from the by-products of +his level-headed versatility. + +Criminology, for example, was an obvious by-product; it was no morbid +taste in Hilton Toye, but a scientific hobby that appealed to his mental +subtlety. And subtle he was, yet with strange simplicities; grave and +dignified, yet addicted to the expressive phraseology of his less +enlightened countrymen; naturally sincere, and yet always capable of +some ingenuous duplicity. + +The appeal of a Blanche Macnair to such a soul needs no analysis. She +had struck through all complexities to the core, such as it was or as +she might make it. As yet she could only admire the character the man +had shown, though it had upset her none the less. At Engelberg he had +proposed to her "inside of two weeks," as he had admitted without +compunction at the time. It had taken him, he said, about two minutes to +make up his mind; but the following summer he had laid more deliberate +siege, in accordance with some old idea that she had let fall to soften +her first refusal. The result had been the same, only more explicit on +both sides. She had denied him the least particle of hope, and he had +warned her that she had not heard the last of him by any means, and +never would till she married another man. This had incensed her at the +time, but a great deal less on subsequent reflection; and such was the +position between that pair when Toye and Cazalet landed in England from +the same steamer. + +On this second day ashore, as Cazalet sat over a late breakfast in +Jermyn Street, Toye sent in his card and was permitted to follow it, +rather to his surprise. He found his man frankly divided between +kidneys-and-bacon and the morning paper, but in a hearty mood, +indicative of amends for his great heat in yesterday's argument. A +plainer indication was the downright yet sunny manner in which Cazalet +at once returned to the contentious topic. + +"Well, my dear Toye, what do you think of it now?" + +[Illustration: "What do you think of it now?"] + +"I was going to ask you what you thought, but I guess I can see from +your face." + +"I think the police are rotters for not setting him free last night!" + +"Scruton?" + +"Yes. Of course, the case'll break down when it comes on next week, but +they oughtn't to wait for that. They've no right to detain a man in +custody when the bottom's out of their case already." + +"But--but the papers claim they've found the very things they were +searching for." Toye looked nonplused, as well he might, by an +apparently perverse jubilation over such intelligence. + +"They haven't found the missing cap!" crowed Cazalet. "What they have +found is Craven's watch and keys, and the silver-mounted truncheon that +killed him. But they found them in a place where they couldn't possibly +have been put by the man identified as Scruton!" + +"Say, where was that?" asked Toye with great interest. "My paper only +says the things were found, not where." + +"No more does mine, but I can tell you, because I helped to find 'em." + +"You don't say!" + +"You'll never grasp where," continued Cazalet. "In the foundations under +the house!" + +Details followed in all fulness; the listener might have had a part in +the Uplands act of yesterday's drama, might have played in the library +scene with his adored Miss Blanche, so vividly was every minute of that +crowded hour brought home to him. He also had seen the original +writing-cupboard in Michelangelo's old Florentine house; he remembered +it perfectly, and said that he could see the replica, with its shelf of +a desk stacked with cigars, and the hole in its floor. He was not so +sure that he had any very definite conception of the foundations of an +English house. + +"Ours were like ever so many little tiny rooms," said Cazalet, "where I +couldn't stand nearly upright even as a small boy without giving my head +a crack against the ground floors. They led into one another by a lot of +little manholes--tight fits even for a boy, but nearly fatal to the boss +policeman yesterday! I used to get in through one with a door, at the +back of a slab in the cellars where they used to keep empty bottles; +they keep 'em there still, because that's how I led my party out last +night." + +Cazalet's little gift of description was not ordered by an equal sense +of selection. Hilton Toye, edging in his word in a pause for a gulp of +coffee, said he guessed he visualized--but just where had those missing +things been found? + +"Three or four compartments from the first one under the library," said +Cazalet. + +"Did you find them?" + +"Well, I kicked against the truncheon, but Drinkwater dug it up. The +watch and keys were with it." + +"Say, were they buried?" + +"Only in the loose rubble and brick-dusty stuff that you get in +foundations." + +"Say, that's bad! That murderer must have known something, or else it's +a bully fluke in his favor." + +"I don't follow you, Toye." + +"I'm thinking of finger-prints. If he'd just've laid those things right +down, he'd have left the print of his hand as large as life for Scotland +Yard." + +"The devil he would!" exclaimed Cazalet. "I wish you'd explain," he +added; "remember I'm a wild man from the woods, and only know of these +things by the vaguest kind of hearsay and stray paragraphs in the +papers. I never knew you could leave your mark so easily as all that." + +Toye took the breakfast menu and placed it face downward on the +tablecloth. "Lay your hand on that, palm down," he said, "and don't move +it for a minute." + +Cazalet looked at him a moment before complying; then his fine, shapely, +sunburnt hand lay still as plaster under their eyes until Toye told him +he might take it up. Of course there was no mark whatever, and Cazalet +laughed. + +"You should have caught me when I came up from those foundations, not +fresh from my tub!" said he. + +"You wait," replied Hilton Toye, taking the menu gingerly by the edge, +and putting it out of harm's way in the empty toast-rack. "You can't see +anything now, but if you come round to the Savoy I'll show you +something." + +"What?" + +"Your prints, sir! I don't say I'm Scotland Yard at the game, but I can +do it well enough to show you how it's done. You haven't left your mark +upon the paper, but I guess you've left the sweat of your hand; if I +snow a little French chalk over it, the chalk'll stick where your hand +did, and blow off easily everywhere else. The rest's as simple as all +big things. It's hanged a few folks already, but I judge it doesn't have +much chance with things that have lain buried in brick-dust. Say, come +round to lunch and I'll have your prints ready for you. I'd like awfully +to show you how it's done. It would really be a great pleasure." + +Cazalet excused himself with decision. He had a full morning in front of +him. He was going to see Miss Macnair's brother, son of the late head of +his father's old firm of solicitors, and now one of the partners, to +get them either to take up Scruton's case themselves, or else to +recommend a firm perhaps more accustomed to criminal practise. Cazalet +was always apt to be elaborate in the first person singular, either in +the past or in the future tense; but he was more so than usual in +explaining his considered intentions in this matter that lay so very +near his heart. + +"Going to see Scruton, too?" said Toye. + +"Not necessarily," was the short reply. But it also was elaborated by +Cazalet on a moment's consideration. The fact was that he wanted first +to know if it were not possible, by the intervention of a really +influential lawyer, to obtain the prisoner's immediate release, at any +rate on bail. If impossible, he might hesitate to force himself on +Scruton in the prison, but he would see. + +"It's a perfect scandal that he should be there at all," said Cazalet, +as he rose first and ushered Toye out into the lounge. "Only think: our +old gardener saw him run out of the drive at half past seven, when the +gong went, when the real murderer must have been shivering in the +Michelangelo cupboard, wondering how the devil he was ever going to get +out again." + +"Then you think old man Craven--begging his poor pardon--was getting out +some cigars when the man, whoever he was, came in and knocked him on the +head?" + +Cazalet nodded vigorously. "That's the likeliest thing of all!" he +cried. "Then the gong went--there may even have come a knock at the +door--and there was that cupboard standing open at his elbow." + +"With a hole in the floor that might have been made for him?" + +"As it happens, yes; he'd search every inch like a rat in a trap, you +see; and there it was as I'd left it twenty years before." + +"Well, it's a wonderful yarn!" exclaimed Hilton Toye, and he lighted the +cigar that Cazalet had given him. + +"I think it may be thought one if the police ever own how they made +their find," agreed Cazalet, laughing and looking at his watch. Toye had +never heard him laugh so often. "By the way, Drinkwater doesn't want any +of all this to come out until he's dragged his man before the beak +again." + +"Which you mean to prevent?" + +"If only I can! I more or less promised not to talk, however, and I'm +sure you won't. You knew so much already, you may just as well know the +rest this week as well as next, if you don't mind keeping it to +yourself." + +Nobody could have minded this particular embargo less than Hilton Toye; +and in nothing was he less like Cazalet, who even now had the +half-regretful and self-excusing air of the impulsive person who has +talked too freely and discovered it too late. But he had been perfectly +delightful to Hilton Toye, almost too appreciative, if anything, and now +very anxious to give him a lift in his taxi. Toye, however, had shopping +to do in the very street that they were in, and he saw Cazalet off with +a smile that was as yet merely puzzled, and not unfriendly until he had +time to recall Miss Blanche's part in the strange affair of the previous +afternoon. + +Say, weren't they rather intimate, those two, even if they had known +each other all their lives? He had it from Blanche (with her second +refusal) that she was not, and never had been, engaged. And a fellow who +only wrote to her once in a year--still, they must have been darned +intimate, and this funny affair would bring them together again quicker +than anything. + +Say, what a funny affair it was when you came to think of it! Funny all +through, it now struck Toye; beginning on board ship with that dream of +Cazalet's about the murdered man, leading to all that talk of the old +grievance against him, and culminating in his actually finding the +implements of the crime in his inspired efforts to save the man of whose +innocence he was so positive. Say, if that Cazalet had not been on his +way home from Australia at the time! + +Like many deliberate speakers, Toye thought like lightning, and had +reached this point before he was a hundred yards from the hotel; then he +thought of something else, and retraced his steps. He retraced them even +to the table at which he had sat with Cazalet not very many minutes ago; +the waiter was only now beginning to clear away. + +"Say, waiter, what have you done with the menu that was in that +toast-rack? There was something on it that we rather wanted to keep." + +"I thought there was, sir," said the English waiter at that admirable +hotel. Toye, however, prepared to talk to him like an American uncle of +Dutch extraction. + +"You thought that, and you took it away?" + +"Not at all, sir. I 'appened to observe the other gentleman put the +menu in his pocket, behind your back as you were getting up, because I +passed a remark about it to the head waiter at the time!" + + + + +IX + +FAIR WARNING + + +It was much more than a map of the metropolis that Toye carried in his +able head. He knew the right places for the right things, from his +tailor's at one end of Jermyn Street to his hatter's at the other, and +from the man for collars and dress shirts, in another of St. James', to +the only man for soft shirts, on Piccadilly. Hilton Toye visited them +all in turn this fine September morning, and found the select team +agreeably disengaged, readier than ever to suit him. Then he gazed +critically at his boots. He was not so dead sure that he had struck the +only man for boots. There had been a young fellow aboard the _Kaiser +Fritz_, quite a little bit of a military blood, who had come ashore in +a pair of cloth tops that had rather unsettled Mr. Toye's mind just on +that one point. + +He thought of this young fellow when he was through with the soft-shirt +man on Piccadilly. They had diced for a drink or two in the +smoking-room, and Captain Aylmer had said he would like to have Toye see +his club any time he was passing and cared to look in for lunch. He had +said so as though he would like it a great deal, and suddenly Toye had a +mind to take him at his word right now. The idea began with those boots +with cloth tops, but that was not all there was to it; there was +something else that had been at the back of Toye's mind all morning, and +now took charge in front. + +Aylmer had talked some about a job in the war office that enabled him to +lunch daily at the Rag; but what his job had been aboard a German +steamer Toye did not know and was not the man to inquire. It was no +business of his, anyway. Reference to a card, traded for his own in +Southampton Water, and duly filed in his cigarette-case, reminded him of +the Rag's proper style and title. And there he was eventually +entertained to a sound, workmanlike, rather expeditious meal. + +"Say, did you see the cemetery at Genoa?" suddenly inquired the visitor +on their way back through the hall. A martial bust had been admired +extravagantly before the question. + +"Never want to see it again, or Genoa either," said Captain Aylmer. "The +smoking-room's this way." + +"I judge you didn't care a lot about the city?" pursued Toye as they +found a corner. + +"Genoa? Oh, I liked it all right, but you get fed up in a couple of +days neither ashore nor afloat. It's a bit amphibious. Of course you can +go to a hotel, if you like; but not if you're only a poor British +soldier." + +"Did you say you were there two days?" Toye was cutting his cigar as +though it were a corn. + +"Two whole days, and we'd had a night in the Bay of Naples just before." + +"Is that so? I only came aboard at Genoa. I guess I was wise," added +Toye, as though he was thinking of something else. There was no sort of +feeling in his voice, but he was sucking his left thumb. + +"I say, you've cut yourself!" + +"I guess it's nothing. Knife too sharp; please don't worry, Captain +Aylmer. I was going to say I only got on at Genoa, and they couldn't +give me a room to myself. I had to go in with Cazalet; that's how I saw +so much of him." + +It was Toye's third separate and independent attempt to introduce the +name and fame of Cazalet as a natural topic of conversation. Twice his +host had listened with adamantine politeness; this time he was enjoying +quite the second-best liqueur brandy to be had at the Rag; and he leaned +back in his chair. + +"You were rather impressed with him, weren't you?" said Captain Aylmer. +"Well, frankly, I wasn't, but it may have been my fault. It does rather +warp one's judgment to be shot out to Aden on a potty job at this time +o' year." + +So that was where he had been? Yes, and by Jove he had to see a man +about it all at three o'clock. + +"One of the nuts," explained Captain Aylmer, keeping his chair with fine +restraint. Toye rose with finer alacrity. "I hope you won't think me +rude," said the captain, "but I'm afraid I really mustn't keep him +waiting." + +Toye said the proper things all the way to the hat-stand, and there took +frontal measures as a last resort. "I was only going to ask you one +thing about Mr. Cazalet," he said, "and I guess I've a reason for +asking, though there's no time to state it now. What did you think of +him, Captain Aylmer, on the whole?" + +"Ah, there you have me. 'On the whole' is just the difficulty," said +Aylmer, answering the straight question readily enough. "I thought he +was a very good chap as far as Naples, but after Genoa he was another +being. I've sometimes wondered what happened in his three or four days +ashore." + +"Three or _four_, did you say?" + +And at the last moment Toye would have played Wedding Guest to Aylmer's +Ancient Mariner. + +"Yes; you see, he knew these German boats waste a couple of days at +Genoa, so he landed at Naples and did his Italy overland. Rather a good +idea, I thought, especially as he said he had friends in Rome; but we +never heard of 'em beforehand, and I should have let the whole thing +strike me a bit sooner if I'd been Cazalet. Soon enough to take a +hand-bag and a tooth-brush, eh? And I don't think I should have run it +quite so fine at Genoa, either. But there are rum birds in this world, +and always will be!" + +Toye felt one himself as he picked his way through St. James' Square. If +it had not been just after lunch, he would have gone straight and had a +cocktail, for of course he knew the only place for _them_. What he did +was to slue round out of the square, and to obtain for the asking, at +another old haunt, on Cockspur Street, the latest little time-table of +continental trains. This he carried, not on foot but in a taxi, to the +Savoy Hotel, where it kept him busy in his own room for the best part of +another hour. But by that time Hilton Toye looked more than an hour +older than on sitting down at his writing-table with pencil, paper and +the little book of trains; he looked horrified, he looked distressed, +and yet he looked crafty, determined and immensely alive. He proceeded, +however, to take some of the life out of himself, and to add still more +to his apparent age, by repairing for more inward light and leading to a +Turkish bath. + +Now the only Turkish bath, according to Hilton Toye's somewhat +exclusive code, was not even a hundred yards from Cazalet's hotel; and +there the visitor of the morning again presented himself before the +afternoon; now merely a little worn, as a man will look after losing a +stone an hour on a warm afternoon, and a bit blue again about the chin, +which of course looked a little deeper and stronger on that account. + +Cazalet was not in; his friend would wait, and in fact waited over an +hour in the little lounge. An evening paper was offered to him; he took +it listlessly, scarcely looked at it at first, then tore it in his +anxiety to find something he had quite forgotten--from the newspaper +end. But he was waiting as stoically as before when Cazalet arrived in +tremendous spirits. + +"Stop and dine!" he cried out at once. + +"Sorry I can't; got to go and see somebody," said Hilton Toye. + +"Then you must have a drink." + +"No, I thank you," said Toye, with the decisive courtesy of a total +abstainer. + +"You look as if you wanted one; you don't look a bit fit," said Cazalet +most kindly. + +"Nor am I, sir!" exclaimed Toye. "I guess London's no place for me in +the fall. Just as well, too, I judge, since I've got to light out again +straight away." + +"You haven't!" + +"Yes, sir, this very night. That's the worst of a business that takes +you to all the capitals of Europe in turn. It takes you so long to flit +around that you never know when you've got to start in again." + +"Which capital is it this time?" said Cazalet. His exuberant geniality +had been dashed very visibly for the moment. But already his high +spirits were reasserting themselves; indeed, a cynic with an ear might +have caught the note of sudden consolation in the question that Cazalet +asked so briskly. + +"Got to go down to Rome," said Toye, watching the effect of his words. + +"But you've just come back from there!" Cazalet looked no worse than +puzzled. + +"No, sir, I missed Rome out; that was my mistake, and here's this +situation been developing behind my back." + +"What situation?" + +"Oh, why, it wouldn't interest you! But I've got to go down to Rome, +whether I like it or not, and I don't like it any, because I don't have +any friends there. And that's what I'm doing right here. I was wondering +if you'd do something for me, Cazalet?" + +"If I can," said Cazalet, "with pleasure." But his smiles were gone. + +"I was wondering if you'd give me an introduction to those friends of +yours in Rome!" + +There was a little pause, and Cazalet's tongue just showed between his +lips, moistening them. It was at that moment the only touch of color in +his face. + +"_Did_ I tell you I'd any friends there?" + +The sound of his voice was perhaps less hoarse than puzzled. Toye made +himself chuckle as he sat looking up out of somber eyes. + +"Well, if you didn't," said he, "I guess I must have dreamed it!" + + + + +X + +THE WEEK OF THEIR LIVES + + +"Toye's gone back to Italy," said Cazalet. "He says he may be away only +a week. Let's make it the week of our lives!" + +The scene was the little room it pleased Blanche to call her parlor, and +the time a preposterously early hour of the following forenoon. Cazalet +might have 'planed down from the skies into her sunny snuggery, though +his brand-new Burberry rather suggested another extravagant taxicab. But +Blanche saw only his worn excited face; and her own was not at its best +in her sheer amazement. + +If she had heard the last two sentences, to understand them at the time +she would have felt bound to take them up first, and to ask how on earth +Mr. Toye could affect her plans or pleasures. But such was the effect of +the preceding statement that all the rest was several moments on the way +to her comprehension, where it arrived, indeed, more incomprehensible +than ever, but not worth making a fuss about then. + +"Italy!" she had ejaculated meanwhile. "_When_ did he go?" + +"Nine o'clock last night." + +"But"--she checked herself--"I simply can't understand it, that's all!" + +"Why? Have you seen him since the other afternoon?" + +His manner might have explained those other two remarks, now bothering +her when it was too late to notice them; on the other hand, she was by +no means sure that it did. He might simply dislike Toye, and that again +might explain his extraordinary heat over the argument at Littleford. +Blanche began to feel the air somewhat heavily charged with +explanations, either demanded or desired; they were things she hated, +and she determined not to add to them if she could help it. + +"I haven't set eyes on him again," she said. "But he's been seen +here--in a taxi." + +"Who saw him?" + +"Martha--if she's not mistaken." + +This was a little disingenuous, as will appear; but that impetuous Sweep +was in a merciful hurry to know something else. + +"When was this, Blanche?" + +"Just about dark--say seven or so. She owns it was about dark," said +Blanche, though she felt ashamed of herself. + +"Well, it's just possible. He left me about six; said he had to see +some one, too, now I think of it. But I'd give a bit to know what he was +doing, messing about down here at the last moment!" + +Blanche liked this as little as anything that Cazalet had said yet, and +he had said nothing that she did like this morning. But there were +allowances to be made for him, she knew. And yet to strengthen her +knowledge, or rather to let him confirm it for her, either by word or by +his silence, she stated a certain case for him aloud. + +"Poor old Sweep!" she laughed. "It's a shame that you should have come +home to be worried like this." + +"I am worried," he said simply. + +"I think it's just splendid, all you're doing for that poor man, but +especially the way you're doing it." + +"I wish to God you wouldn't say that, Blanche!" + +He paid her the compliment of speaking exactly as he would have spoken +to a man; or rather, she happened to be the woman to take it as a +compliment. + +"But I do say it, Sweep! I've heard all about it from Charlie. He rang +me up last night." + +"You're on the telephone, are you?" + +"Everybody is in these days. Where have you lived? Oh, I forgot!" And +she laughed. Anything to lift this duet of theirs out of the minor key! + +"But what does old Charlie really think of the case? That's more to the +point," said Cazalet uneasily. + +"Well, he seemed to fear there was no chance of bail before the +adjourned hearing. But I rather gathered he was not going to be in it +himself?" + +"No. We decided on one of those sportsmen who love rushing in where a +family lawyer like Charlie owns to looking down his nose. I've seen the +chap, and primed him up about old Savage, and our find in the +foundations. He says he'll make an example of Drinkwater, and Charlie +says they call him the Bobby's Bugbear!" + +"But surely he'll have to tell his client who's behind him?" + +"No. He's just the type who would have rushed in, anyhow. And it'll be +time enough to put Scruton under obligations when I've got him off!" + +Blanche looked at the troubled eyes avoiding hers, and thought that she +had never heard of a fine thing being done so finely. This very +shamefacedness appealed to her intensely, and yet last night Charlie had +said that old Sweep was in such tremendous spirits about it all! Why was +he so down this morning? + +She only knew she could have taken his hand, but for a very good reason +why she could not. She had even to guard against an equivocally +sympathetic voice or manner, as she asked, "How long did they remand him +for?" + +"Eight days." + +"Well, then, you'll know the best or the worst to-day week!" + +"Yes!" he said eagerly, almost himself again. "But, whichever way it +goes, I'm afraid it means trouble for me, Blanche; some time or other +I'll tell you why; but that's why I want this to be the week of our +lives." + +So he really meant what he had said before. The phrase had been no +careless misuse of words; but neither, after all, did it necessarily +apply to Mr. Toye. That was something. It made it easier for Blanche not +to ask questions. + +Cazalet had gone out on the balcony; now he called to her; and there +was no taxi, but a smart open car, waiting in the road, its brasses +blazing in the sun, an immaculate chauffeur at the wheel. + +"Whose is that, Sweep?" + +"Mine, for the week I'm talking about! I mean ours, if you'd only buck +up and get ready to come out! A week doesn't last forever, you know!" + +Blanche ran off to Martha, who fussed and hindered her with the best +intentions. It would have been difficult to say which was the more +excited of the two. But the old nurse would waste time in perfectly +fatuous reminiscences of the very earliest expeditions in which Mr. +Cazalet had lead and Blanche had followed, and what a bonny pair they +had made even then, etc. Severely snubbed on that subject, she took to +peering at her mistress, once her bairn, with furtive eagerness and +impatience; for Blanche, on her side, looked as though she had something +on her mind, and, indeed, had made one or two attempts to get it off. +She had to force it even in the end. + +"There's just one thing I want to say before I go, Martha." + +"Yes, dearie, yes?" + +"You know when Mr. Toye called yesterday, and I was out?" + +"Oh, Mr. Toye; yes, I remember, Miss Blanche." + +"Well, I don't want you to say that he came in and waited half an hour +in vain; in fact, not that he came in at all, or that you're even sure +you saw him, unless, of course, you're asked." + +"Who should ask me, I wonder?" + +"Well, I don't know, but there seems to be a little bad blood between +Mr. Toye and Mr. Cazalet." + +Martha looked for a moment as though she were about to weep, and then +for another moment as though she would die of laughing. But a third +moment she celebrated by making an utter old fool of herself, as she +would have been told to her face by anybody but Blanche, whose yellow +hair was being disarranged by the very hands that had helped to imprison +it under that motor-hat and veil. + +"Oh, Blanchie, is that all you have to tell me?" said Martha. + +And then the week of their lives began. + + + + +XI + +IN COUNTRY AND IN TOWN + + +The weather was true to them, and this was a larger matter than it might +have been. They were not making love. They were "not out for that," as +Blanche herself actually told Martha, with annihilating scorn, when the +old dear looked both knowing and longing-to-know at the end of the first +day's run. They were out to enjoy themselves, and that seemed shocking +to Martha "unless something was coming of it." She had just sense enough +to keep her conditional clause to herself. + +Yet if they were only out to enjoy themselves, in the way Miss Blanche +vowed and declared (more shame for her), they certainly had done wonders +for a start. Martha could hardly credit all they said they had done, and +as an embittered pedestrian there was nothing that she would "put past" +one of those nasty motors. It said very little for Mr. Cazalet, by the +way, in Martha's private opinion, that he should take her Miss Blanche +out in a car at all; if he had turned out as well as she had hoped, and +"meant anything," a nice boat on the river would have been better for +them both than all that tearing through the air in a cloud of smoky +dust; it would also have been much less expensive, and far more "the +thing". + +But, there, to see and hear the child after the first day! She looked so +bonny that for a time Martha really believed that Mr. Cazalet had +"spoken," and allowed herself to admire him also as he drove off later +with his wicked lamps alight. But Blanche would only go on and on about +her day, the glories of the Ripley Road and the grandeur of Hindhead. +She had brought back heaps of heather and bunches of leaves just +beginning to turn; they were all over the little house before Cazalet +had been gone ten minutes. But Blanche hadn't forgotten her poor old +Martha; she was not one to forget people, especially when she loved and +yet had to snub them. Martha's portion was picture post-cards of the +Gibbet and other landmarks of the day. + +"And if you're good," said Blanche, "you shall have some every day, and +an album to keep them in forever and ever. And won't that be nice when +it's all over, and Mr. Cazalet's gone back to Australia?" + +Crueller anticlimax was never planned, but Martha's face had brought it +on her; and now it remained to make her see for herself what an +incomparably good time they were having so far. + +"It was a simply splendid lunch at the Beacon, and _such_ a tea at +Byfleet, coming back another way," explained Blanche, who was +notoriously indifferent about her food, but also as a rule much hungrier +than she seemed to-night. "It must be that tea, my dear. It was _too_ +much. To-morrow I'm to take the _Sirram_, and I want Walter to see if he +can't get a billy and show me how they make tea in the bush; but he says +it simply couldn't be done without methylated." + +The next day they went over the Hog's Back, and the next day right +through London into Hertfordshire. This was a tremendous experience. The +car was a good one from a good firm, and the chauffeur drove like an +angel through the traffic, so that the teeming city opened before them +from end to end. Then the Hertfordshire hedges and meadows and timber +were the very things after the Hog's Back and Hindhead; not so +wonderful, of course, but more like old England and less like the bush; +and before the day was out they had seen, through dodging London on the +way back, the Harrow boys like a lot of young butlers who had changed +hats with the maids, and Eton boys as closely resembling a convocation +of slack curates. + +Then there was their Buckinghamshire day--Chalfont St. Giles and +Hughenden--and almost detached experiences such as the churchyard at +Stoke Poges, where Cazalet repeated astounding chunks of its _Elegy_, +learned as long ago as his preparatory school-days, and the terrible +disillusion of Hounslow Heath and its murderous trams. + +Then there was the wood they found where gipsies had been camping, where +they resolved that moment to do the same, just exactly in every detail +as Cazalet had so often done it in the bush; so that flesh and flour +were fetched from the neighboring village, and he sat on his heels and +turned them into mutton and damper in about a minute; and after that a +real camp-fire till long after dark, and a shadowy chauffeur smoking his +pipe somewhere in the other shadows, and thinking them, of course, quite +mad. The critic on the hearth at home thought even worse of them than +that. But Blanche only told the truth when she declared that the whole +thing had been her idea; and she might have added, a bitter +disappointment to her, because Walter simply would not talk about the +bush itself, and never had since that first hour in the old empty +schoolroom at Littleford. + +(By the way, she had taken to calling him Walter to his face.) + +Of other conversation, however, there was not and never had been the +slightest dearth between them; but it was, perhaps, a sad case of +quantity. These were two outdoor souls, and the one with the interesting +life no longer spoke about it. Neither was a great reader, even of the +papers, though Blanche liked poetry as she liked going to church; but +each had the mind that could batten quite amiably on other people. So +there was a deal of talk about neighbors down the river, and some of it +was scandal, and all was gossip; and there was a great deal about what +Blanche called their stone-age days, but again far less about +themselves when young than there had been at Littleford, that first day. +And so much for their conversation, once for all; it was frankly that of +two very ordinary persons, placed in an extraordinary position to which +they had shut their eyes for a week. + +They must have had between them, however, some rudimentary sense of +construction; for their final fling, if not just the most inspiring, was +at least unlike all the rest. It was almost as new to Blanche, and now +much more so to Cazalet; it appealed as strongly to their common stock +of freshness and simplicity. Yet cause and effect were alike undeniably +lacking in distinction. It began with cartloads of new clothes from +Cazalet's old tailor, and it ended in a theater and the Carlton. + +Martha surpassed herself, of course; she had gone about for days (or +rather mornings and evenings) in an aggressive silence, her lips +provocatively pursed; but now the time had come for her to speak out, +and that she did. If Miss Blanche had no respect for herself, there were +those who had some for her, just as there were others who seemed to have +forgotten the meaning of the word. The euphemistic plural disappeared at +the first syllable from Blanche. It was nothing to Martha that she had +been offered a place in the car (beside that forward young man) more +days than one; well did Mr. Cazalet know her feelings about motors +before he made her the offer. But she was not saying anything about what +was past. _This_ was the limit; an expression which only sullied +Martha's lips because Blanche had just applied it to her interference. +It was not behaving as a gentleman; it was enough to work unpleasant +miracles in her poor parents' graves; and though Martha herself would +die sooner than inform Mr. Charlie or the married sisters, other people +were beginning to talk, and when this came out she knew who would get +the blame. + +So Blanche seemed rather flushed and very spirited at the short and +early dinner at Dieudonne's; but it was a fact that the motoring had +affected her skin, besides making her eyes look as though she had been +doing what she simply never did. It had also toned up the lower part of +Cazalet's face to match the rest; otherwise he was more like a +meerschaum pipe than ever, with the white frieze across his forehead +(but now nothing else) to stamp him from the wilds. And soon nobody was +laughing louder at Mr. Payne and Mr. Grossmith; nobody looked better +qualified for his gaiety stall, nobody less like a predestined figure +in impending melodrama. + +So also at the Carlton later; more champagne, of course, and the jokes +of the evening to replenish a dwindling store, and the people at the +other tables to give a fresh fillip to the game of gossip. Blanche +looked as well as any of them in a fresher way than most, and Cazalet a +noble creature in all his brand-new glory; and she winced with pride at +the huge tip she saw him give the waiter; for an old friend may be proud +of an old friend, surely! Then they got a good place for watching more +people in the lounge; and the fiddling conductor proved the best worth +watching of the lot, and was pronounced the very best performer that +Cazalet had ever heard in all his life. Many other items were praised in +the same fervent formula, which Blanche confirmed about everything +except his brandy and cigar. + +Above all was it delightful to feel that their beloved car was waiting +for them outside, to whirl them out of all this racket just as late as +they liked; for quite early in the week (and this was a glaring +aggravation in Martha's eyes) Cazalet had taken lodgings for himself and +driver in those very Nell Gwynne Cottages where Hilton Toye had stayed +before him. + +All the evening nothing had been better of its kind than this music at +the very end; and, of course, it was the kind for Blanche and Cazalet, +who for his part liked anything with a tune, but could never remember +one to save his life. Yet when they played an aged waltz, actually in +its second decade, just upon half past twelve, even Cazalet cocked his +head and frowned, as though he had heard the thing before. + +"I seem to know that," he said. "I believe I've danced to it." + +"I have," said Blanche. "Often," she added suddenly; and then, "I +suppose you sometimes dance in the bush, Walter?" + +"Sometimes." + +"That's where it was, then." + +"I don't think so. You couldn't get that tremendous long note on a +piano. There it goes again--bars and bars of it! That's what I seem to +remember." + +Blanche's face never changed. "Now, that's the end. They're beginning to +put the lights out, Walter. Don't you think we'd better go?" + + + + +XII + +THE THOUSANDTH MAN + + +It had been new life to them, but now it was all over. It was the last +evening of their week, and they were spending it rather silently on +Blanche's balcony. + +"I make it at least three hundred," said Cazalet, and knocked out a pipe +that might have been a gag. "You see, we were very seldom under fifty!" + +"Speak for yourself, please! My longevity's a tender point," said +Blanche, who looked as though she had no business to have her hair up, +as she sat in a pale cross-fire between a lamp-post and her lighted +room. + +Cazalet protested that he had only meant their mileage in the car; he +made himself extremely intelligible now, as he often would when she +rallied him in a serious voice. Evidently that was not the way to rouse +him up to-night, and she wanted to cheer him after all that he had done +for her. Better perhaps not to burke the matter that she knew was on his +mind. + +"Well, it's been a heavenly time," she assured him just once more. "And +to-morrow it's pretty sure to come all right about Scruton, isn't it?" + +"Yes! To-morrow we shall probably have Toye back," he answered with grim +inconsequence. + +"What has that to do with it, Walter?" + +"Oh, nothing, of course." + +But still his tone was grim and heavy, with a schoolboy irony that he +would not explain but could not keep to himself. So Mr. Toye must be +turned out of the conversation, though it was not Blanche who had +dragged him in. She wished people would stick to their point. She meant +to make people, just for once and for their own good; but it took time +to find so many fresh openings, and he only cutting up another pipeful +of that really rather objectionable bush tobacco. + +"There's one thing I've rather wanted to ask you," she began. + +"Yes?" said Cazalet. + +"You said the other day that it would mean worry for you in any +case--after to-morrow--whether the charge is dismissed or not!" + +His wicker chair creaked under him. + +"I don't see why it should," she persisted, "if the case falls through." + +"Well, that's where I come in," he had to say. + +"Surely you mean just the other way about? If they commit the man for +trial, then you do come in, I know. It's like your goodness." + +"I wish you wouldn't say that! It hurts me!" + +"Then will you explain yourself? It's not fair to tell me so much, and +then to leave out just the bit that's making you miserable!" + +The trusty, sisterly, sensible voice, half bantering but altogether +kind, genuinely interested if the least bit inquisitive, too, would have +gone to a harder or more hardened heart than beat on Blanche's balcony +that night. Yet as Cazalet lighted his pipe he looked old enough to be +her father. + +"I'll tell you some time," he puffed. + +"It's only a case of two heads," said Blanche. "I know you're bothered, +and I should like to help, that's all." + +"You couldn't." + +"How do you know? I believe you're going to devote yourself to this +poor man--if you can get him off--I mean, when you do." + +"Well?" he said. + +"Surely I could help you there! Especially if he's ill," cried Blanche, +encouraged by his silence. "I'm not half a bad nurse, really!" + +"I'm certain you're not." + +"Does he _look_ very ill?" + +She had been trying to avoid the direct question as far as possible, but +this one seemed so harmless. Yet it was received in a stony silence +unlike any that had gone before. It was as though Cazalet neither moved +nor breathed, whereas he had been all sighs and fidgets just before. His +pipe was out already--that was the one merit of bush tobacco, it +required constant attention--and he did not look like lighting it again. + +Until to-night they had not mentioned Scruton since the motoring began. +That had been a tacit rule of the road, of wayside talk and indoor orgy. +But Blanche had always assumed that Cazalet had been to see him in the +prison; and now he told her that he never had. + +"I can't face him," he cried under his breath, "and that's the truth! +Let me get him out of this hole, and I'm his man forever; but until I +do, while there's a chance of failing, I simply can't face the fellow. +It isn't as if he'd asked to see me. Why should I force myself upon +him?" + +"He hasn't asked to see you because he doesn't know what you're doing +for him!" Blanche leaned forward as eagerly as she was speaking, all her +repressed feelings coming to their own in her for just a moment. "He +doesn't know because I do believe you wouldn't have him told that you'd +arrived, lest he should suspect! You _are_ a brick, Sweep, you really +are!" + +He was too much of one to sit still under the name. He sprang up, +beating his hands. "Why shouldn't I be--to him--to a poor devil who's +been through all he's been through? Ten years! Just think of it; no, +it's unthinkable to you or me. And it all started in our office; we were +to blame for not keeping our eyes open; things couldn't have come to +such a pass if we'd done our part, my poor old father for one--I can't +help saying it--and I myself for another. Talk about contributory +negligence! We were negligent, as well as blind. We didn't know a +villain when we saw one, and we let him make another villain under our +noses; and the second one was the only one we could see in his true +colors, even then. Do you think we owe him nothing now? Don't you think +_I_ owe him something, as the only man left to pay?" + +But Blanche made no attempt to answer his passionate questions. He had +let himself go at last; it relieved her also in a way, for it was the +natural man back again on her balcony. But he had set Blanche off +thinking on other lines than he intended. + +"I'm thinking of what _he_ must have felt he owed Mr. Craven and--and +Ethel!" she owned. + +"I don't bother my head over either of them," returned Cazalet harshly. +"He was never a white man in his lifetime, and she was every inch his +daughter. Scruton's the one I pity--because--because I've suffered so +much from that man myself." + +"But you don't think he did it!" Blanche was sharp enough to interrupt. + +"No--no--but if he had!" + +"You'd still stand by him?" + +"I've told you so before. I meant to take him back to Australia with +me--I never told you that--but I meant to take him, and not a soul out +there to know who he was." He sighed aloud over the tragic stopper on +that plan. + +"And would you still?" she asked. + +"If I could get him off." + +"Guilty or not guilty?" + +"Rather!" + +There was neither shame, pose, nor hesitation about that. Blanche went +through into the room without a word, but her eyes shone finely in the +lamplight. Then she returned with a book, and stood half in the balcony, +framed as in a panel, looking for a place. + +"You remind me of _The Thousandth Man_," she told him as she found it. + +"Who was he?" + +"He's every man who does a thousandth part of what you're doing!" said +Blanche with confidence. And then she read, rather shyly and not too +well: + + + "'One man in a thousand, Solomon says, + Will stick more close than a brother. + And it's worth while seeking him half your days + If you find him before the other. + Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend + On what the world sees in you, + But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend + With the whole round world agin you.'" + + +"I should hope he would," said Cazalet, "if he's a man at all." + +"But this is the bit for you," said Blanche: + + + "'His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right, + In season or out of season. + Stand up and back it in all men's sight-- + With _that_ for your only reason! + Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide + The shame or mocking or laughter, + But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side + _To the gallows-foot_--and after!'" + + +The last italics were in Blanche's voice, and it trembled, but so did +Cazalet's as he cried out in his formula: + +"That's the finest thing I ever heard in all my life! But it's true, and +so it should be. _I_ don't take any credit for it." + +"Then you're all the more the thousandth man!" + +He caught her suddenly by the shoulders. His rough hands trembled; his +jaw worked. "Look here, Blanchie! If _you_ had a friend, wouldn't you do +the same?" + +"Yes, if I'd such a friend as all that," she faltered. + +"You'd stand by his side 'to the gallows-foot'--if he was swine enough +to let you?" + +"I dare say I might." + +"However bad a thing it was--murder, if you like--and however much he +was mixed up in it--not like poor Scruton?" + +"I'd try to stick to him," she said simply. + +"Then you're the thousandth woman," said Cazalet. "God bless you, +Blanchie!" + +[Illustration: "God bless you, Blanchie!"] + +He turned on his heel in the balcony, and a minute later found the room +behind him empty. He entered, stood thinking, and suddenly began looking +all over for the photograph of himself, with a beard, which he had seen +there a week before. + + + + +XIII + +QUID PRO QUO + + +It was his blessing that had done it; up to then she had controlled her +feelings in a fashion worthy of the title just bestowed upon her. If +only he had stopped at that, and kept his blessing to himself! It +sounded so very much more like a knell that Blanche had begun first to +laugh, and then to make such a fool of herself (as she herself +reiterated) that she was obliged to run away in the worst possible +order. + +But that was not the end of those four superfluous words of final +benediction; before the night was out they had solved, to Blanche's +satisfaction, the hitherto impenetrable mystery of Cazalet's conduct. + +He had done something in Australia, something that fixed a gulf between +him and her. Blanche did not mean something wrong, much less a crime, +least of all any sort of complicity in the great crime which had been +committed while he was on his way home. Obviously he could have had no +connection with that, until days afterward as the accused man's friend. +Yet he had on his conscience some act or other of which he was ashamed +to speak. It might even itself be shameful; that was what his whole +manner had suggested, but what Blanche was least ready and at the same +time least unwilling to believe. She felt she could forgive such an old +friend almost anything. But she believed the worst he had done was to +emulate his friend Mr. Potts, and to get engaged or perhaps actually +married to somebody in the bush. + +There was no reason why he should not; there never had been any sort or +kind of understanding between herself and him; it was only as lifelong +friends that they had written to each other, and that only once a year. +Lifelong friendships are traditionally fatal to romance. Blanche could +remember only one occasion on which their friendship had risen to +something more--or fallen to something less! She knew which it had been +to her; especially just afterward, when all his troubles had come and he +had gone away without another word of that kind. He had resolved not to +let her tie herself, and so had tied her all the tighter, if not tighter +still by never stating his resolve. But to go as far as this is to go +two or three steps further than Blanche went in her perfectly rational +retrospect: she simply saw, as indeed she had always seen, that they +had both been free as air; and if he was free no longer, she had +absolutely no cause for complaint, even if she was fool enough to feel +it. + +All this she saw quite clearly in her very honest heart. And yet, he +might have told her; he need not have flown to see her, the instant he +landed, or seemed so overjoyed, and such a boy again, or made so much of +her and their common memories! He need not have begun begging her, in a +minute, to go out to Australia, and then never have mentioned it again; +he might just as well have told her if he had or hoped to have a wife to +welcome her! Of course he saw it afterward, himself; that was why the +whole subject of Australia had been dropped so suddenly and for good. +Most likely he had married beneath him; if so, she was very sorry, but +he might have said that he was married. Had Blanche been analyzing +herself, and not just the general position of things, she would have had +hereabouts to account to her conscience for a not unpleasing spasm at +the sudden thought of his being unhappily married all the time. + +One proof was that he had utterly forgotten all about the waltz of +_Eldorado_--even its name! No; it had some vague associations for him, +and that was worse than none at all. Blanche had its long note (not +"bars and bars," though, Sweep) wailing in her head all night. And so +for him their friendship had only fallen to something lower, to that +hateful haunting tune that he could not even decently forget! + +Curiously enough, it was over Martha that she felt least able to forgive +him. Martha would say nothing, but her unspoken denunciations of Cazalet +would be only less intolerable than her unspoken sympathy with Blanche. +Martha had been perfectly awful about the whole thing. And Martha had +committed the final outrage of being perfectly right, from her idiotic +point of view. + +Now among all these meditations of a long night, and of a still longer +day, in which nobody even troubled to send her word of the case at +Kingston, it would be too much to say that no thought of Hilton Toye +ever entered the mind of Blanche. She could not help liking him; he +amused her immensely; and he had proposed to her twice, and warned her +he would again. She felt the force of his warning, because she felt his +force of character and will. She literally felt these forces, as actual +emanations from the strongest personality that had ever impinged upon +her own. Not only was he strong, but capable and cultivated; and he +knew the whole world as most people only knew some hole or corner of it; +and could be most interesting without ever talking about himself or +other people. + +In the day of reaction, such considerations were bound to steal in as +single spies, each with a certain consolation, not altogether innocent +of comparisons. But the battalion of Toye's virtues only marched on +Blanche when Martha came to her, on the little green rug of a lawn +behind the house, to say that Mr. Toye himself had called and was in the +drawing-room. + +Blanche stole up past the door, and quickly made herself smarter than +she had ever done by day for Walter Cazalet; at least she put on a +"dressy" blouse, her calling skirt (which always looked new), and did +what she could to her hair. All this was only because Mr. Toye always +came down as if it were Mayfair, and it was rotten to make people feel +awkward if you could help it. So in sailed Blanche, in her very best for +the light of day, to be followed as soon as possible by the silver +teapot, though she had just had tea herself. And there stood Hilton +Toye, chin blue and collar black, his trousers all knees and no creases, +exactly as he had jumped out of the boat-train. + +"I guess I'm not fit to speak to you," he said, "but that's just what +I've come to do--for the third time!" + +"Oh, Mr. Toye!" cried Blanche, really frightened by the face that made +his meaning clear. It relaxed a little as she shrank involuntarily, but +the compassion in his eyes and mouth did not lessen their steady +determination. + +"I didn't have time to make myself presentable," he explained. "I +thought you wouldn't have me waste a moment if you understood the +situation. I want your promise to marry me right now!" + +Blanche began to breathe again. Evidently he was on the eve of yet +another of his journeys, probably back to America, and he wanted to go +over engaged; at first she had thought he had bad news to break to her, +but this was no worse than she had heard before. Only it was more +difficult to cope with him; everything was different, and he so much +more pressing and precipitate. She had never met this Hilton Toye +before. Yes; she was distinctly frightened by him. But in a minute she +had ceased to be frightened of herself; she knew her own mind once more, +and spoke it much as he had spoken his, quite compassionately, but just +as tersely to the point. + +"One moment," he interrupted. "I said nothing about my feelings, +because they're a kind of stale proposition by this time; but for form's +sake I may state there's no change there, except in the only direction I +guess a person's feelings are liable to change toward you, Miss Blanche! +I'm a worse case than ever, if that makes any difference." + +Blanche shook her yellow head. "Nothing can," she said. "There must be +no possible mistake about it this time, because I want you to be very +good and never ask me again. And I'm glad you didn't make all the proper +speeches, because I needn't either, Mr. Toye! But--I know my own mind +better than I ever did until this very minute--and I could simply never +marry you!" + +Toye accepted his fate with a ready resignation, little short of +alacrity. There was a gleam in his somber eyes, and his blue chin came +up with a jerk. "That's talking!" said he. "Now will you promise me +never to marry Cazalet?" + +"Mr. Toye!" + +"That's talking, too, and I guess I mean it to be. It's not all +dog-in-the-manger, either. I want that promise a lot more than I want +the other. You needn't marry me, Miss Blanche, but you mustn't marry +Cazalet." + +Blanche was blazing. "But this is simply outrageous--" + +"I claim there's an outrageous cause for it. Are you prepared to swear +what I ask, and trust me as I'll trust you, or am I to tell you the +whole thing right now?" + +"You won't force me to listen to another word from you, if you're a +gentleman, Mr. Toye!" + +"It's not what I am that counts. Swear that to me, and I swear, on my +side, that I won't give him away to you or any one else. But it must be +the most solemn contract man and woman ever made." + +The silver teapot arrived at this juncture, and not inopportunely. She +had to give him his tea, with her young maid's help, and to play a tiny +part in which he supported her really beautifully. She had time to +think, almost coolly; and one thought brought a thrill. If it was a +question of her marrying or not marrying Walter Cazalet, then he must be +free, and only the doer of some dreadful deed! + +"What _has_ he done?" she begged, with a pathetic abandonment of her +previous attitude, the moment they were by themselves. + +"Must I tell you?" His reluctance rang genuine. + +"I insist upon it!" she flashed again. + +"Well, it's a long story." + +"Never mind. I can listen." + +"You know, I had to go back to Italy--" + +"Had you?" + +"Well, I did go." He had slurred the first statement; this one was +characteristically deliberate. "I did go, and before I went I asked +Cazalet for an introduction to some friends of his down in Rome." + +"I didn't know he had any," said Blanche. She was not listening so very +well; she was, in fact, instinctively prepared to challenge every +statement, on Cazalet's behalf; and here her instinct defeated itself. + +"No more he has," said Toye, "but he claimed to have some. He left the +_Kaiser Fritz_ the other day at Naples--just when I came aboard. I guess +he told you?" + +"No. I understood he came round to Southampton. Surely you shared a +cabin?" + +"Only from Genoa; that's where Cazalet rejoined the steamer." + +"Well?" + +"He claimed to have spent the interval mostly with friends in Rome. +Those friends don't exist, Miss Blanche," said Toye. + +"Is that any business of mine?" she asked him squarely. + +"Why, yes, I'm afraid it's going to be. That is, unless you'll still +trust me--" + +"Go on, please." + +"Why, he never stayed in Rome at all, nor yet in Italy any longer than +it takes to come through on the train. Your attention for one moment!" +He took out a neat pocketbook. Blanche had opened her lips, but she did +not interrupt; she just grasped the arms of her chair, as though about +to bear physical pain. "The _Kaiser Fritz_"--Toye was speaking from his +book--"got to Naples late Monday afternoon, September eighth. She was +overdue, and I was mad about it, and madder still when I went aboard and +she never sailed till morning. I guess I'd wasted--" + +"Do tell me about Walter Cazalet!" cried Blanche. It was like small talk +from a dentist at the last moment. + +"I want you to understand about the steamer first," said Toye. "She +waited Monday night in the Bay of Naples, only sailed Tuesday morning, +only reached Genoa Wednesday morning, and lay there forty-eight hours, +as the German boats do, anyhow. That brings us to Friday morning before +the _Kaiser Fritz_ gets quit of Italy, doesn't it?" + +"Yes--do tell me about Walter!" + +"He was gone ashore Monday evening before I came aboard at Naples. I +never saw him till he scrambled aboard again Friday, about the +fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour." + +"At Genoa?" + +"Sure." + +"And you pretend to know where he'd been?" + +"I guess I do know"--and Toye sighed as he raised his little book. +"Cazalet stepped on the train that left Naples six fifty Monday evening, +and off the one timed to reach Charing Cross three twenty-five +Wednesday." + +"The day of the m--" + +"Yes. I never called it by the hardest name, myself; but it was seven +thirty Wednesday evening that Henry Craven got his death-blow somehow. +Well, Walter Cazalet left Charing Cross again by the nine o'clock that +night, and was back aboard the _Kaiser Fritz_ on Friday morning--full of +his friends in Rome who didn't exist!" + +The note-book was put away with every symptom of relief. + +"I suppose you can prove what you say?" said Blanche in a voice as dull +as her unseeing eyes. + +"I have men to swear to him--ticket-collectors, conductors, waiters on +the restaurant-car--all up and down the line. I went over the same +ground on the same trains, so that was simple. I can also produce the +barber who claims to have taken off his beard in Paris, where he put in +hours Thursday morning." + +Blanche looked up suddenly, not at Toye, but past him toward an +overladen side-table against the wall. It was there that Cazalet's +photograph had stood among many others; until this morning she had +never missed it, for she seemed hardly to have been in her room all the +week; but she had been wondering who had removed it, whether Cazalet +himself (who had spoken of doing so, she now knew why), or Martha (whom +she would not question about it) in a fit of ungovernable disapproval. +And now there was the photograph back in its place, leather frame and +all! + +"I know what you did," said Blanche. "You took that photograph with +you--the one on that table--and had him identified by it!" + +Yet she stated the fact, for his bowed head admitted it to be one, as +nothing but a fact, in the same dull voice of apathetic acquiescence in +an act of which the man himself was ashamed. She could see him wondering +at her; she even wondered at herself. Yet if all this were true, what +matter how the truth had come to light? + +"It was the night I came down to bid you good-by," he confessed, "and +didn't have time to wait. I didn't come down for the photo. I never +thought of it till I saw it there. I came down to kind of warn you, Miss +Blanche!" + +"Against him?" she said, as if there was only one man left in the world. + +"Yes--I guess I'd already warned Cazalet that I was starting on his +tracks." + +And then Blanche just said, "Poor--old--Sweep!" as one talking to +herself. And Toye seized upon the words as she had seized on nothing +from him. + +"Have you only pity for the fellow?" he cried; for she was gazing at the +bearded photograph without revulsion. + +"Of course," she answered, hardly attending. + +"Even though he killed this man--even though he came across Europe to +kill him?" + +"You don't think it was deliberate yourself, even if he did do it." + +"But can you doubt that he did?" cried Toye, quick to ignore the point +she had made, yet none the less sincerely convinced upon the other. "I +guess you wouldn't if you'd heard some of the things he said to me on +the steamer; and he's made good every syllable since he landed. Why, it +explains every single thing he's done and left undone. He'll strain +every nerve to have Scruton ably defended, but he won't see the man he's +defending; says himself that he can't face him!" + +"Yes. He said so to me," said Blanche, nodding in confirmation. + +"To you?" + +"I didn't understand him." + +"But you're been seeing him all this while?" + +"Every day," said Blanche, her soft eyes filling suddenly. "We've +had--we've had the time of our lives!" + +"My God!" said Toye. "The time of your life with a man who's got another +man's blood on his hands--and that makes no difference to you! The time +of your life with the man who knew where to lay hands on the weapon he'd +done it with, who went as far as that to save the innocent, but no +farther!" + +"He would; he will still, if it's still necessary. You don't know him, +Mr. Toye; you haven't known him all your life." + +"And all this makes no difference to a good and gentle woman--one of the +gentlest and the best God ever made?" + +"If you mean me, I won't go so far as that," said Blanche. "I must see +him first." + +"See Cazalet?" + +Toye had come to his feet, not simply in the horror and indignation +which had gradually taken possession of him, but under the stress of +some new and sudden resolve. + +"Of course," said Blanche; "of course I must see him as soon as +possible." + +"Never again!" he cried. + +"What?" + +"You shall never speak to that man again, as long as ever you live," +said Toye, with the utmost emphasis and deliberation. + +"Who's going to prevent me?" + +"I am." + +"How?" + +"By laying an information against him this minute, unless you promise +never to see or to speak to Cazalet again." + +Blanche felt cold and sick, but the bit of downright bullying did her +good. "I didn't know you were a blackmailer, Mr. Toye!" + +"You know I'm not; but I mean to save you from Cazalet, blackmail or +white." + +"To save me from a mere old friend--nothing more--_nothing_--all our +lives!" + +"I believe that," he said, searching her with his smoldering eyes. "You +couldn't tell a lie, I guess, not if you tried! But you would do +something; it's just a man being next door to hell that would bring a +God's angel--" His voice shook. + +She was as quick to soften on her side. + +"Don't talk nonsense, please," she begged, forcing a smile through her +distress. "Will you promise to do nothing if--if _I_ promise?" + +"Not to go near him?" + +"No." + +"Nor to see him here?" + +"No." + +"Nor anywhere else?" + +"No. I give you my word." + +"If you break it, I break mine that minute? Is it a deal that way?" + +"Yes! Yes! I promise!" + +"Then so do I, by God!" said Hilton Toye. + + + + +XIV + +FAITH UNFAITHFUL + + +"It's all perfectly true," said Cazalet calmly. "Those were my movements +while I was off the ship, except for the five hours and a bit that I was +away from Charing Cross. I can't dispute a detail of all the rest. But +they'll have to fill in those five hours unless they want another case +to collapse like the one against Scruton!" + +Old Savage had wriggled like a venerable worm, in the experienced talons +of the Bobby's Bugbear; but then Mr. Drinkwater and his discoveries had +come still worse out of a hotter encounter with the truculent attorney; +and Cazalet had described the whole thing as only he could describe a +given episode, down to the ultimate dismissal of the charge against +Scruton, with a gusto the more cynical for the deliberately low pitch of +his voice. It was in the little lodging-house sitting-room at Nell +Gwynne's Cottages; he stood with his back to the crackling fire that he +had just lighted himself, as it were, already at bay; for the +folding-doors were in front of his nose, and his eyes roved incessantly +from the landing door on one side to the curtained casement on the +other. Yet sometimes he paused to gaze at the friend who had come to +warn him of his danger; and there was nothing cynical or grim about him +then. + +Blanche had broken her word for perhaps the first time in her life; but +it had never before been extorted from her by duress, and it would be +affectation to credit her with much compunction on the point. Her one +great qualm lay in the possibility of Toye's turning up at any moment; +but this she had obviated to some extent by coming straight to the +cottages when he left her--presumably to look for Cazalet in London, +since she had been careful not to mention his change of address. +Cazalet, to her relief, but also a little to her hurt, she had found at +his lodgings in the neighborhood, full of the news he had not managed to +communicate to her. But it was no time for taking anything but his peril +to heart. And that they had been discussing, almost as man to man, if +rather as innocent man to innocent man; for even now, or perhaps now in +his presence least of all, Blanche could not bring herself to believe +her old friend guilty of a violent crime, however unpremeditated, for +which another had been allowed to suffer, for however short a time. + +And yet, he seemed to make no secret of it; and yet--it did explain his +whole conduct since landing, as Toye had said. + +She could only shut her eyes to what must have happened, even as Cazalet +himself had shut his all this wonderful week, that she had forgotten all +day in her ingratitude, but would never, in all her days, forget again! + +"There won't be another case," she heard herself saying, while her +thoughts ran ahead or lagged behind like sheep. "It'll never come out--I +know it won't." + +"Why shouldn't it?" he asked so sharply that she had to account for the +words, to herself as well as to him. + +"Nobody knows except Mr. Toye, and he means to keep it to himself." + +"Why should he?" + +"I don't know. He'll tell you himself." + +"Are you sure you don't know? What can he have to tell me? Why should he +screen me, Blanche?" + +His eyes and voice were furious with suspicion, but still the voice was +lowered. + +"He's a jolly good sort, you know," said Blanche, as if the whole affair +was the most ordinary one in the world. But heroics could not have +driven the sense of her remark more forcibly home to Cazalet. + +"Oh, he is, is he?" + +"I've always found him so." + +"So have I, the little I've seen of him. And I don't blame him for +getting on my tracks, mind you; he's a bit of a detective, I was fair +game, and he did warn me in a way. That's why I meant to have the +week--" He stopped and looked away. + +"I know. And nothing can undo _that_," she only said; but her voice +swelled with thanksgiving. And Cazalet looked reassured; the hot +suspicion died out of his eyes, but left them gloomily perplexed. + +"Still, I can't understand it. I don't believe it, either! I'm in his +hands. What have I done to be saved by Toye? He's probably scouring +London for me--if he isn't watching this window at this minute!" + +He went to the curtains as he spoke. Simultaneously Blanche sprang up, +to entreat him to fly while he could. That had been her first object in +coming to him as she had done, and yet, once with him, she had left it +to the last! And now it was too late; he was at the window, chuckling +significantly to himself; he had opened it, and he was leaning out. + +"That you, Toye, down there? Come up and show yourself! I want to see +you." + +He turned in time to dart in front of the folding-doors as Blanche +reached them, white and shuddering. The flush of impulsive bravado fled +from his face at the sight of hers. + +"You can't go in there. What's the matter?" he whispered. "Why should +_you_ be afraid of Hilton Toye?" + +How could she tell him? Before she had found a word, the landing door +opened, and Hilton Toye was in the room, looking at her. + +"Keep your voice down," said Cazalet anxiously. "Even if it's all over +with me but the shouting, we needn't start the shouting here!" + +He chuckled savagely at his jest; and now Toye stood looking at him. + +"I've heard all you've done," continued Cazalet. "I don't blame you a +bit. If it had been the other way about, I might have given you less run +for your money. I've heard what you've found out about my mysterious +movements, and you're absolutely right as far as you go. You don't know +why I took the train at Naples, and traveled across Europe without a +hand-bag. It wasn't quite the put-up job you may think. But, if it makes +you any happier, I may as well tell you that I _was_ at Uplands that +night, and I _did_ get out through the foundations!" + +The insane impetuosity of the man was his master now. He was a living +fire of impulse that had burst into a blaze. His voice was raised in +spite of his warning to the others, and the very first sound of Toye's +was to remind him that he was forgetting his own advice. Toye had not +looked a second time at Blanche; nor did he now; but he took in the +silenced Cazalet from head to heel, by inches. + +"I always guessed you might be crazy, and I now know it," said Hilton +Toye. "Still, I judge you're not so crazy as to deny that while you were +in that house you struck down Henry Craven, and left him for dead?" + +Cazalet stood like a red-hot stone. + +"Miss Blanche," said Toye, turning to her rather shyly, "I guess I can't +do what I said just yet. I haven't breathed a word, not yet, and perhaps +I never will, if you'll come away with me now--back to your home--and +never see Henry Craven's murderer again!" + +"And who may he be?" cried a voice that brought all three face-about. + +The folding-doors had opened, and a fourth figure was standing between +the two rooms. + + + + +XV + +THE PERSON UNKNOWN + + +The intruder was a shaggy elderly man, of so cadaverous an aspect that +his face alone cried for his death-bed; and his gaunt frame took up the +cry, as it swayed upon the threshold in dressing-gown and bedroom +slippers that Toye instantly recognized as belonging to Cazalet. The man +had a shock of almost white hair, and a less gray beard clipped roughly +to a point. An unwholesome pallor marked the fallen features; and the +envenomed eyes burned low in their sockets, as they dealt with Blanche +but fastened on Hilton Toye. + +"What do _you_ know about Henry Craven's murderer?" he demanded in a +voice between a croak and a crow. "Have they run in some other poor +devil, or were you talking about me? If so, I'll start a libel action, +and call Cazalet and that lady as witnesses!" + +[Illustration: "What do you know about Henry Craven's murderer?"] + +"This is Scruton," explained Cazalet, "who was only liberated this +evening after being detained a week on a charge that ought never to have +been brought, as I've told you both all along." Scruton thanked him with +a bitter laugh. "I've brought him here," concluded Cazalet, "because I +don't think he's fit enough to be about alone." + +"Nice of him, isn't it?" said Scruton bitterly. "I'm so fit that they +wanted to keep me somewhere else longer than they'd any right; that may +be why they lost no time in getting hold of me again. Nice, considerate, +kindly country! Ten years isn't long enough to have you as a dishonored +guest. 'Won't you come back for another week, and see if we can't +arrange a nice little sudden death and burial for you?' But they +couldn't you see, blast 'em!" + +He subsided into the best chair in the room, which Blanche had wheeled +up behind him; a moment later he looked round, thanked her curtly, and +lay back with closed eyes until suddenly he opened them on Cazalet. + +"And what was that _you_ were saying--that about traveling across Europe +and being at Uplands that night? I thought you came round by sea? And +what night do you mean?" + +"The night it all happened," said Cazalet steadily. + +"You mean the night some person unknown knocked Craven on the head?" + +"Yes." + +The sick man threw himself forward in the chair. "You never told me +this!" he cried suspiciously; both the voice and the man seemed +stronger. + +"There was no point in telling you." + +"Did you see the person?" + +"Yes." + +"Then he isn't unknown to you?" + +"I didn't see him well." + +Scruton looked sharply at the two mute listeners. They were very intent, +indeed. "Who are these people, Cazalet? No! I know one of 'em," he +answered himself in the next breath. "It's Blanche Macnair, isn't it? I +thought at first it must be a younger sister grown up like her. You'll +forgive prison manners, Miss Macnair, if that's still your name. You +look a woman to trust--if there is one--and you gave me your chair. +Anyhow, you've been in for a penny and you can stay in for a pound, as +far as I care! But who's your Amer'can friend, Cazalet?" + +"Mr. Hilton Toye, who spotted that I'd been all the way to Uplands and +back when I claimed to have been in Rome!" + +There was a touch of Scruton's bitterness in Cazalet's voice; and by +some subtle process it had a distinctly mollifying effect on the really +embittered man. + +"What on earth were you doing at Uplands?" he asked, in a kind of +confidential bewilderment. + +"I went down to see a man." + +Toye himself could not have cut and measured more deliberate +monosyllables. + +"Craven?" suggested Scruton. + +"No; a man I expected to find at Craven's." + +"The writer of the letter you found at Cook's office in Naples the +night you landed there, I guess!" + +It really was Toye this time, and there was no guesswork in his tone. +Obviously he was speaking by his little book, though he had not got it +out again. + +"How do you know I went to Cook's?" + +"I know every step you took between the _Kaiser Fritz_ and Charing Cross +and Charing Cross and the _Kaiser Fritz_!" + +Scruton listened to this interchange with keen attention, hanging on +each man's lips with his sunken eyes; both took it calmly, but Scruton's +surprise was not hidden by a sardonic grin. + +"You've evidently had a stern chase with a Yankee clipper!" said he. "If +he's right about the letter, Cazalet, I should say so; presumably it +wasn't from Craven himself?" + +"No." + +"Yet it brought you across Europe to Craven's house?" + +"Well--to the back of his house! I expected to meet my man on the +river." + +"Was that how you missed him more or less?" + +"I suppose it was." + +Scruton ruminated a little, broke into his offensive laugh, and checked +it instantly of his own accord. "This is really interesting," he +croaked. "You get to London--at what time was it?" + +"Nominally three twenty-five; but the train ran thirteen minutes late," +said Hilton Toye. + +"And you're on the river by what time?" Scruton asked Cazalet. + +"I walked over Hungerford Bridge, took the first train to Surbiton, got +a boat there, and just dropped down with the stream. I don't suppose +the whole thing took me very much more than an hour." + +"Aren't you forgetting something?" said Toye. + +"Yes, I was. It was I who telephoned to the house and found that Craven +was out motoring; so there was no hurry." + +"Yet you weren't going to see Henry Craven?" murmured Toye. + +Cazalet did not answer. His last words had come in a characteristic +burst; now he had his mouth shut tight, and his eyes were fast to +Scruton. He might have been in the witness-box already, a doomed wretch +cynically supposed to be giving evidence on his own behalf, but actually +only baring his neck by inches to the rope, under the joint persuasion +of judge and counsel. But he had one friend by him still, one who had +edged a little nearer in the pause. + +"But you did see the man you went to see?" said Scruton. + +Cazalet paused. "I don't know. Eventually somebody brushed past me in +the dark. I did think then--but I can't swear to him even now!" + +"Tell us about it." + +"Do you mean that, Scruton? Do you insist on hearing all that happened? +I'm not asking Toye; he can do what he likes. But you, Scruton--you've +been through a lot, you know--you ought to have stopped in bed--do you +really want this on top of all?" + +"Go ahead," said Scruton. "I'll have a drink when you've done; somebody +give me a cigarette meanwhile." + +Cazalet supplied the cigarette, struck the match, and held it with +unfaltering hand. The two men's eyes met strangely across the flame. + +"I'll tell you all exactly what happened; you can believe me or not as +you like. You won't forget that I knew every inch of the ground--except +one altered bit that explained itself." Cazalet turned to Blanche with a +significant look, but she only drew an inch nearer still. "Well, it was +in the little creek, where the boat-house is, that I waited for my man. +He never came--by the river. I heard the motor, but it wasn't Henry +Craven that I wanted to see, but the man who was coming to see him. +Eventually I thought I must have made a mistake, or he might have +changed his mind and come by road. The dressing-gong had gone; at least +I supposed it was that by the time. It was almost quite dark, and I +landed and went up the path past the back premises to the front of the +house. So far I hadn't seen a soul, or been seen by one, evidently; but +the French windows were open in what used to be my father's library, the +room was all lit up, and just as I got there a man ran out into the +flood of light and--" + +"I thought you said he brushed by you in the dark?" interrupted Toye. + +"I was in the dark; so was he in another second; and no power on earth +would induce me to swear to him. Do you want to hear the rest, Scruton, +or are you another unbeliever?" + +"I want to hear every word--more than ever!" + +Toye cocked his head at both question and answer, but inclined it +quickly as Cazalet turned to him before proceeding. + +"I went in and found Henry Craven lying in his blood. That's gospel--it +was so I found him--lying just where he had fallen in a heap out of the +leather chair at his desk. The top right-hand drawer of his desk was +open, the key in it and the rest of the bunch still swinging! A revolver +lay as it had dropped upon the desk--it had upset the ink--and there +were cartridges lying loose in the open drawer, and the revolver was +loaded. I swept it back into the drawer, turned the key and removed it +with the bunch. But there was something else on the desk--that +silver-mounted truncheon--and a man's cap was lying on the floor. I +picked them both up. My first instinct, I confess it, was to remove +every sign of manslaughter and to leave the scene to be reconstructed +into one of accident--seizure--anything but what it was!" + +He paused as if waiting for a question. None was asked. Toye's mouth +might have been sewn up, his eyes were like hatpins driven into his +head. The other two simply stared. + +"It was a mad idea, but I had gone mad," continued Cazalet. "I had +hated the victim alive, and it couldn't change me that he was dead or +dying; _that_ didn't make him a white man, and neither did it +necessarily blacken the poor devil who had probably suffered from him +like the rest of us and only struck him down in self-defense. The +revolver on the desk made that pretty plain. It was out of the way, but +now I saw blood all over the desk as well; it was soaking into the +blotter, and it knocked the bottom out of my idea. What was to be done? +I had meddled already; how could I give the alarm without giving myself +away to that extent, and God knows how much further? The most awful +moment of the lot came as I hesitated--the dinner-gong went off in the +hall outside the door! I remember watching the thing on the floor to +see if it would move. + +"Then I lost my head--absolutely. I turned the key in the door, to give +myself a few seconds' grace or start; it reminded me of the keys in my +hands. One of them was one of those little round bramah keys. It seemed +familiar to me even after so many years. I looked up, and there was my +father's Michelangelo closet, with its little round bramah keyhole. I +opened it as the outer door was knocked at and then tried. But my mad +instinct of altering every possible appearance, to mislead the police, +stuck to me to the last. And I took the man's watch and chain into the +closet with me, as well as the cap and truncheon that I had picked up +before. + +"I don't know how long I was above ground, so to speak, but one of my +father's objects had been to make his retreat sound-tight, and I could +scarcely hear what was going on in the room. That encouraged me; and two +of you don't need telling how I got out through the foundations, because +you know all about the hole I made myself as a boy in the floor under +the oilcloth. It took some finding with single matches; but the fear of +your neck gives you eyes in your finger-ends, and gimlets, too, by Jove! +The worst part was getting out at the other end, into the cellars; there +were heaps of empty bottles to move, one by one, before there was room +to open the manhole door and to squirm out over the slab; and I thought +they rang like a peal of bells, but I put them all back again, and +apparently ... nobody overheard in the scullery. + +"The big dog barked at me like blazes--he did again the other day--but +nobody seemed to hear him either. I got to my boat, tipped a fellow on +the towing path to take it back and pay for it--why haven't the police +got hold of him?--and ran down to the bridge over the weir. I stopped a +big car with a smart shaver smoking his pipe at the wheel. I should have +thought he'd have come forward for the reward that was put up; but I +pretended I was late for dinner I had in town, and I let him drop me at +the Grand Hotel. He cost me a fiver, but I had on a waistcoat lined with +notes, and I'd more than five minutes in hand at Charing Cross. If you +want to know, it was the time in hand that gave me the whole idea of +doubling back to Genoa; I must have been half-way up to town before I +thought of it!" + +He had told the whole thing as he always could tell an actual +experience; that was one reason why it rang so true to one listener at +every point. But the sick man's sunken eyes had advanced from their +sockets in cumulative amazement. And Hilton Toye laughed shortly when +the end was reached. + +"You figure some on our credulity!" was his first comment. + +"I don't figure on anything from you, Toye, except a pair of handcuffs +as a first instalment!" + +Toye rose in prompt acceptance of the challenge. "Seriously, Cazalet, +you ask us to believe that you did all this to screen a man you didn't +have time to recognize?" + +"I've told you the facts." + +"Well, I guess you'd better tell them to the police." Toye took his hat +and stick. Scruton was struggling from his chair. Blanche stood +petrified, a dove under a serpent's spell, as Toye made her a sardonic +bow from the landing door. "You broke your side of the contract, Miss +Blanche! I guess it's up to me to complete." + +"Wait!" + +It was Scruton's raven croak; he had tottered to his feet. + +"Sure," said Toye, "if you've anything you want to say as an interested +party." + +"Only this--he's told the truth!" + +"Well, can he prove it?" + +"I don't know," said Scruton. "But I can!" + +"You?" Blanche chimed in there. + +"Yes, I'd like that drink first, if you don't mind, Cazalet." It was +Blanche who got it for him, in an instant. "Thank you! I'd say more if +my blessing was worth having--but here's something that is. Listen to +this, you American gentleman: I was the man who wrote to him in Naples. +Leave it at that a minute; it was my second letter to him; the first was +to Australia, in answer to one from him. It was the full history of my +downfall. I got a warder to smuggle it out. That letter was my one +chance." + +"I know it by heart," said Cazalet. "It was that and nothing else that +made me leave before the shearing." + +"To meet me when I came out!" Scruton explained in a hoarse whisper. +"To--to keep me from going straight to that man, as I'd told him I +should in my first letter! But you can't hit these things off to the day +or the week; he'd told me where to write to him on his voyage, and I +wrote to Naples, but that letter did not get smuggled out. My warder +friend had got the sack. I had to put what I'd got to say so that you +could read it two ways. So I told you, Cazalet, I was going straight up +the river for a row--and you can pronounce that two ways. And I said I +hoped I shouldn't break a scull--but there's another way of spelling +that, and it was the other way I meant!" He chuckled grimly. "I wanted +you to lie low and let _me_ lie low if that happened. I wanted just one +man in the world to know I'd done it. But that's how we came to miss +each other, for you timed it to a tick, if you hadn't misread me about +the river." + +He drank again, stood straighter, and found a fuller voice. + +"Yet I never meant to do it unless he made me, and at the back of my +brain I never thought he would. I thought he'd do something for me, +after all he'd done before! Shall I tell you what he did?" + +"Got out his revolver!" cried Cazalet in a voice that was his own +justification as well. + +"Pretending it was going to be his check-book!" said Scruton through +his teeth. "But I heard him trying to cock it inside his drawer. There +was his special constable's truncheon hanging on the wall--silver +mounted, for all the world to know how he'd stood up for law and order +in the sight of men! I tell you it was a joy to feel the weight of that +truncheon, and to see the hero of Trafalgar Square fumbling with a thing +he didn't understand! I hit him as hard as God would let me--and the +rest you know--except that I nearly did trip over the man who swore it +was broad daylight at the time!" + +He tottered to the folding-doors, and stood there a moment, pointing to +Cazalet with a hand that twitched as terribly as his dreadful face. + +"No--the rest you did--the rest you did to save what wasn't worth +saving! But--I think--I'll hold out long enough to thank you--just a +little!" He was gone with a gibbering smile. + +Cazalet turned straight to Toye at the other door. "Well? Aren't you +going, too? You were near enough, you see! I'm an accessory all +right"--he dropped his voice--"but I'd be principal if I could instead +of _him_!" + +But Toye had come back into the room, twinkling with triumph, even +rubbing his hands. "You didn't see? You didn't see? I never meant to go +at all; it was a bit of bluff to make him own up, and it did, too, +bully!" + +The couple gasped. + +"You mean to tell me," cried Cazalet, "that you believed my story all +the time?" + +"Why, I didn't have a moment's doubt about it!" + +Cazalet drew away from the chuckling creature and his crafty glee. But +Blanche came forward and held out her hand. + +"Will you forgive me, Mr. Toye?" + +"Sure, if I had anything to forgive. It's the other way around, I guess, +and about time I did something to help." He edged up to the +folding-door. "This is a two-man job, Cazalet, the way I make it out. +Guess it's my watch on deck!" + +"The other's the way to the police station," said Cazalet densely. + +Toye turned solemn on the word. "It's the way to hell, if Miss Blanche +will forgive me! This is more like the other place, thanks to you folks. +Guess I'll leave the angels in charge!" + +Angelic or not, the pair were alone at last; and through the doors they +heard a quavering croak of welcome to the rather human god from the +American machine. + +"I'm afraid he'll never go back with you to the bush," whispered +Blanche. + +"Scruton?" + +"Yes." + +"I'm afraid, too. But I wanted to take somebody else out, too. I was +trying to say so over a week ago, when we were talking about old Venus +Potts. Blanchie, will you come?" + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Thousandth Woman, by Ernest W. 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Hornung + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Thousandth Woman + +Author: Ernest W. Hornung + +Illustrator: Frank Snapp + +Release Date: August 13, 2011 [EBook #37062] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THOUSANDTH WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class="bold2">THE THOUSANDTH WOMAN</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/cover.jpg" width='443' height='700' alt="cover" /></div> + +<hr /> + +<h1><span>THE<br />THOUSANDTH WOMAN</span><br /><br /><span id="id1"><i>By</i></span> <span>ERNEST W. HORNUNG</span></h1> + +<p class="center"><i>Author of</i><br /> +THE AMATEUR CRACKSMAN, RAFFLES, ETC.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">ILLUSTRATED BY</p> + +<p class="bold">FRANK SNAPP</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">INDIANAPOLIS<br />THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br />PUBLISHERS</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright 1913<br /> +The Bobbs-Merrill Company</span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">PRESS OF<br />BRAUNWORTH & CO.<br /> +BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS<br />BROOKLYN, N. Y.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/ill01.jpg" width='468' height='700' alt="I wonder who can have done it" /></div> + +<p class="bold">"I wonder who can have done it."</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2><span>CONTENTS</span></h2> + +<table summary="CONTENTS"> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="left"><span class="smaller">CHAPTER</span></td> + <td><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>I.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">A Small World</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>II.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Second Sight</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>III.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">In the Train</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>IV.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Down the River</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>V.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">An Untimely Visitor</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>VI.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Voluntary Service</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>VII.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">After Michelangelo</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>VIII.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Finger-Prints</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>IX.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Fair Warning</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>X.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Week of Their Lives</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XI.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">In Country and In Town</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XII.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Thousandth Man</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_169">169</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XIII.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Quid Pro Quo</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XIV.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Faith Unfaithful</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XV.</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Person Unknown</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<p class="bold2">THE THOUSANDTH WOMAN</p> + +<h2><span>I</span> <span class="smaller">A SMALL WORLD</span></h2> + +<p>Cazalet sat up so suddenly that his head hit the woodwork over the upper +berth. His own voice still rang in his startled ears. He wondered how +much he had said, and how far it could have carried above the throb of +the liner's screws and the mighty pounding of the water against her +plates. Then his assembling senses coupled the light in the cabin with +his own clear recollection of having switched it off before turning +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>over. And then he remembered how he had been left behind at Naples, and +rejoined the <i>Kaiser Fritz</i> at Genoa, only to find that he no longer had +a cabin to himself.</p> + +<p>A sniff assured Cazalet that he was neither alone at the moment nor yet +the only one awake; he pulled back the swaying curtain, which he had +taken to keeping drawn at night; and there on the settee, with the +thinnest of cigarettes between his muscular fingers, sat a man with a +strong blue chin and the quizzical solemnity of an animated sphinx.</p> + +<p>It was his cabin companion, an American named Hilton Toye, and Cazalet +addressed him with nervous familiarity.</p> + +<p>"I say! Have I been talking in my sleep?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes!" replied Hilton Toye, and broke into a smile that made a +human being of him.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p><p>Cazalet forced a responsive grin, as he reached for his own cigarettes. +"What did I say?" he asked, with an amused curiosity at variance with +his shaking hand and shining forehead.</p> + +<p>Toye took him in from crown to fingertips, with something deep behind +his kindly smile. "I judge," said he, "you were dreaming of some drama +you've been seeing ashore, Mr. Cazalet."</p> + +<p>"Dreaming!" said Cazalet, wiping his face. "It was a nightmare! I must +have turned in too soon after dinner. But I should like to know what I said."</p> + +<p>"I can tell you word for word. You said, 'Henry Craven—dead!' and then +you said, 'Dead—dead—Henry Craven!' as if you'd got to have it both +ways to make sure."</p> + +<p>"It's true," said Cazalet, shuddering. "I saw him lying dead, in my dream."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p><p>Hilton Toye took a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket. "Thirteen +minutes to one in the morning," he said, "and now it's September +eighteenth. Take a note of that, Mr. Cazalet. It may be another case of +second sight for your psychical research society."</p> + +<p>"I don't care if it is." Cazalet was smoking furiously.</p> + +<p>"Meaning it was no great friend you dreamed was dead?"</p> + +<p>"No friend at all, dead or alive!"</p> + +<p>"I'm kind of wondering," said Toye, winding his watch up slowly, "if +he's by way of being a friend of mine. I know a Henry Craven over in +England. Lives along the river, down Kingston way, in a big house."</p> + +<p>"Called Uplands?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir! That's the man. Little world, isn't it?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p><p>The man in the upper berth had to hold on as his curtains swung clear; +the man tilted back on the settee, all attention all the time, was more +than ever an effective foil to him. Without the kindly smile that went +as quickly as it came, Hilton Toye was somber, subtle and demure. +Cazalet, on the other hand, was of sanguine complexion and impetuous +looks. He was tanned a rich bronze about the middle of the face, but it +broke off across his forehead like the coloring of a meerschaum pipe. +Both men were in their early prime, and each stood roughly for his race +and type: the traveled American who knows the world, and the elemental +Britisher who has made some one loose end of it his own.</p> + +<p>"I thought of my Henry Craven," continued Toye, "as soon as ever you +came out with yours. But it seemed a kind of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> ordinary name. I might +have known it was the same if I'd recollected the name of his firm. +Isn't it Craven & Cazalet, the stockbrokers, down in Tokenhouse Yard?"</p> + +<p>"That's it," said Cazalet bitterly. "But there have been none of us in +it since my father died ten years ago."</p> + +<p>"But you're Henry Craven's old partner's son?"</p> + +<p>"I'm his only son."</p> + +<p>"Then no wonder you dream about Henry Craven," cried Toye, "and no +wonder it wouldn't break your heart if your dream came true."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't," said Cazalet through his teeth. "He wasn't a white man to +me or mine—whatever you may have found him."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I don't claim to like him a lot," said Toye.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p><p>"But you seem to know a good deal about him?"</p> + +<p>"I had a little place near his one summer. I know only what I heard down there."</p> + +<p>"What did you hear?" asked Cazalet. "I've been away ten years, ever +since the crash that ruined everybody but the man at the bottom of the +whole thing. It would be a kindness to tell me what you heard."</p> + +<p>"Well, I guess you've said it yourself right now. That man seems to have +beggared everybody all around except himself; that's how I make it out," +said Hilton Toye.</p> + +<p>"He did worse," said Cazalet through his teeth. "He killed my poor +father; he banished me to the wilds of Australia; and he sent a better +man than himself to prison for fourteen years!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p><p>Toye opened his dark eyes for once. "Is that so? No. I never heard +that," said he.</p> + +<p>"You hear it now. He did all that, indirectly, and I don't care who +hears me say so. I didn't realize it at the time. I was too young, and +the whole thing laid me out too flat; but I know it now, and I've known +it long enough. It was worse than a crash. It was a scandal. That was +what finished us off, all but Henry Craven! There'd been a gigantic +swindle—special investments recommended by the firm, bogus certificates +and all the rest of it. We were all to blame, of course. My poor father +ought never to have been a business man at all; he should have been a +poet. Even I—I was only a youngster in the office, but I ought to have +known what was going on. But Henry Craven <i>did</i> know. He was in it up to +the neck,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> though a fellow called Scruton did the actual job. Scruton +got fourteen years—and Craven got our old house on the river!"</p> + +<p>"And feathered it pretty well!" said Toye, nodding. "Yes, I did hear +that. And I can tell you they don't think any better of him, in the +neighborhood, for going to live right there. But how did he stop the +other man's mouth, and—how do you know?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind how I know," said Cazalet. "Scruton was a friend of mine, +though an older man; he was good to me, though he was a wrong 'un +himself. He paid for it—paid for two—that I <i>can</i> say! But he was +engaged to Ethel Craven at the time, was going to be taken into +partnership on their marriage, and you can put two and two together for yourself."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p><p>"Did she wait for him?"</p> + +<p>"About as long as you'd expect of the breed! She was her father's +daughter. I wonder you didn't come across her and her husband!"</p> + +<p>"I didn't see so much of the Craven crowd," replied Hilton Toye. "I +wasn't stuck on them either. Say, Cazalet, I wouldn't be that old man +when Scruton comes out, would you?"</p> + +<p>But Cazalet showed that he could hold his tongue when he liked, and his +grim look was not so legible as some that had come and gone before. This +one stuck until Toye produced a big flask from his grip, and the talk +shifted to less painful ground. It was the last night in the Bay of +Biscay, and Cazalet told how he had been in it a fortnight on his way +out by sailing-vessel. He even told it with considerable humor, and hit +off sundry <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>passengers of ten years ago as though they had been aboard +the German boat that night; for he had gifts of anecdote and verbal +portraiture, and in their unpremeditated cups Toye drew him out about +the bush until the shadows passed for minutes from the red-brick face +with the white-brick forehead.</p> + +<p>"I remember thinking I would dig for gold," said Cazalet. "That's all I +knew about Australia; that and bushrangers and dust-storms and +bush-fires! But you can have adventures of sorts if you go far enough +up-country for 'em; it still pays you to know how to use your fists out +there. I didn't, but I was picking it up before I'd been out three +months, and in six I was as ready as anybody to take off my coat. I +remember once at a bush shanty they dished up such fruity chops that I +said I'd fight the cook if they'd send<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> <i>him</i> up; and I'm blowed if it +wasn't a fellow I'd been at school with and worshiped as no end of a +swell at games! Potts his name was, old Venus Potts, the best looking +chap in the school among other things; and there he was, cooking carrion +at twenty-five bob a week! Instead of fighting we joined forces, got a +burr-cutting job on a good station, then a better one over shearing, and +after that I wormed my way in as bookkeeper, and my pal became one of +the head overseers. Now we're our own bosses with a share in the show, +and the owner comes up only once a year to see how things are looking."</p> + +<p>"I hope he had a daughter," said Toye, "and that you're going to marry +her, if you haven't yet?"</p> + +<p>Cazalet laughed, but the shadow had returned. "No. I left that to my +pal," he said. "<i>He</i> did that all right!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p><p>"Then I advise you to go and do likewise," rejoined his new friend with +a geniality impossible to take amiss. "I shouldn't wonder, now, if +there's some girl you left behind you."</p> + +<p>Cazalet shook his head. "None who would look on herself in that light," +he interrupted. It was all he said, but once more Toye was regarding him +as shrewdly as when the night was younger, and the littleness of the +world had not yet made them confidant and boon companion.</p> + +<p>Eight bells actually struck before their great talk ended and Cazalet +swore that he missed the "watches aft, sir!" of the sailing-vessel ten +years before; and recalled how they had never changed watch without +putting the ship about, his last time in the bay.</p> + +<p>"Say!" exclaimed Hilton Toye, knitting his brows over some nebulous +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>recollection of his own. "I seem to have heard of you and some of your +yarns before. Didn't you spend nights in a log-hut miles and miles from +any other human being?"</p> + +<p>It was as they were turning in at last, but the question spoiled a yawn for Cazalet.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes, at one of our out-stations," said he, looking puzzled.</p> + +<p>"I've seen your photograph," said Toye, regarding him with a more +critical stare. "But it was with a beard."</p> + +<p>"I had it off when I was ashore the other day," said Cazalet. "I always +meant to, before the end of the voyage."</p> + +<p>"I see. It was a Miss Macnair showed me that photograph—Miss Blanche +Macnair lives in a little house down there near your old home. I judge +hers is another old home that's been broken up since your day."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p><p>"They've all got married," said Cazalet.</p> + +<p>"Except Miss Blanche. You write to her some, Mr. Cazalet?"</p> + +<p>"Once a year—regularly. It was a promise. We were kids together," he +explained, as he climbed back into the upper berth.</p> + +<p>"Guess you were a lucky kid," said the voice below. "She's one in a +thousand, Miss Blanche Macnair!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>II</span> <span class="smaller">SECOND SIGHT</span></h2> + +<p>Southampton Water was an ornamental lake dotted with fairy lamps. The +stars above seemed only a far-away reflex of those below; but in their +turn they shimmered on the sleek silken arm of sleeping sea. It was a +midsummer night, lagging a whole season behind its fellows. But already +it was so late that the English passengers on the <i>Kaiser Fritz</i> had +abandoned all thought of catching the last train up to London.</p> + +<p>They tramped the deck in their noisy, shiny, shore-going boots; they +manned the rail in lazy inarticulate appreciation of the nocturne in +blue stippled with green and red and countless yellow lights.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> Some +delivered themselves of the patriotic platitudes which become the homing +tourist who has seen no foreign land to touch his own. But one who had +seen more than sights and cities, one who had been ten years buried in +the bush, one with such yarns to spin behind those outpost lights of +England, was not even on deck to hail them back into his ken. Achilles +in his tent was no more conspicuous absentee than Cazalet in his cabin +as the <i>Kaiser Fritz</i> steamed sedately up Southampton Water.</p> + +<p>He had finished packing; the stateroom floor was impassable with the +baggage that Cazalet had wanted on the five-weeks' voyage. There was +scarcely room to sit down, but in what there was sat Cazalet like a soul +in torment. All the vultures of the night before, of his dreadful dream, +and of the poignant reminiscences to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> which his dream had led, might +have been gnawing at his vitals as he sat there waiting to set foot once +more in the land from which a bitter blow had driven him.</p> + +<p>Yet the bitterness might have been allayed by the consciousness that he, +at any rate, had turned it to account. It had been, indeed, the making +of him; thanks to that stern incentive, even some of the sweets of a +deserved success were already his. But there was no hint of complacency +in Cazalet's clouded face and heavy attitude. He looked as if he had not +slept, after all, since his nightmare; almost as if he could not trust +himself to sleep again. His face was pale, even in that torrid zone +between the latitudes protected in the bush by beard and wide-awake. And +he jumped to his feet as suddenly as the screw stopped for the first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +time; but that might have been just the curious shock which its +cessation always causes after days at sea. Only the same thing happened +again and yet again, as often as ever the engines paused before the end. +Cazalet would spring up and watch his stateroom door with clenched fists +and haunted eyes. But it was some long time before the door flew open, +and then slammed behind Hilton Toye.</p> + +<p>Toye was in a state of excitement even more abnormal than Cazalet's +nervous despondency, which indeed it prevented him from observing. It +was instantaneously clear that Toye was astounded, thrilled, almost +triumphant, but as yet just drawing the line at that. A newspaper +fluttered in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Second sight?" he ejaculated, as though it were the night before and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>Cazalet still shaken by his dream. "I guess you've got it in full +measure, pressed down and running over, Mr. Cazalet!"</p> + +<p>It was a sorry sample of his talk. Hilton Toye did not usually mix the +ready metaphors that nevertheless had to satisfy an inner censor, of +some austerity, before they were allowed to leave those deliberate lips. +As a rule there was dignity in that deliberation; it never for a moment, +or for any ordinary moment, suggested want of confidence, for example. +It could even dignify some outworn modes of transatlantic speech which +still preserved a perpetual freshness in the mouth of Hilton Toye. Yet +now, in his strange excitement, word and tone alike were on the level of +the stage American's. It was not less than extraordinary.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean about—" Cazalet seemed to be swallowing.</p> + +<p>"I do, sir!" cried Hilton Toye.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p><p>"—about Henry Craven?"</p> + +<p>"Sure."</p> + +<p>"Has—something or other—happened to him?"</p> + +<p>"Yep."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say he's—dead?"</p> + +<p>"Last Wednesday night!" Toye looked at his paper. "No, I guess I'm +wrong. Seems it happened Wednesday, but he only passed away Sunday morning."</p> + +<p>Cazalet still sat staring at him—there was not room for two of them on +their feet—but into his heavy stare there came a gleam of leaden +wisdom. "This was Thursday morning," he said, "so I didn't dream of it +when it happened, after all."</p> + +<p>"You dreamed you saw him lying dead, and so he was," said Toye. "The +funeral's been to-day. I don't know, but that seems to me just about the +next nearest thing to seeing the crime perpetrated in a vision."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p><p>"Crime!" cried Cazalet. "What crime?"</p> + +<p>"Murder, sir!" said Hilton Toye. "Wilful, brutal, bloody murder! Here's +the paper; better read it for yourself. I'm glad he wasn't a friend of +yours, or mine either, but it's a bad end even for your worst enemy."</p> + +<p>The paper fluttered in Cazalet's clutch as it had done in Toye's; but +that was as natural as his puzzled frown over the cryptic allusions of a +journal that had dealt fully with the ascertainable facts in previous +issues. Some few emerged between the lines. Henry Craven had received +his fatal injuries on the Wednesday of the previous week. The thing had +happened in his library, at or about half past seven in the evening; but +how a crime, which was apparently a profound mystery, had been timed to +within a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>minute of its commission did not appear among the latest +particulars. No arrest had been made. No clue was mentioned, beyond the +statement that the police were still searching for a definite instrument +with which it was evidently assumed that the deed had been committed. +There was in fact a close description of an unusual weapon, a special +constable's very special truncheon. It had hung as a cherished trophy on +the library wall, from which it was missing, while the very imprint of a +silver shield, mounted on the thick end of the weapon, was stated to +have been discovered on the scalp of the fractured skull. But that was a +little bit of special reporting, typical of the enterprising sheet that +Toye had procured. The inquest, merely opened on the Monday, had been +adjourned to the day of issue.</p> + +<p>"We must get hold of an evening <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>paper," said Cazalet. "Fancy his own +famous truncheon! He had it mounted and inscribed himself, so that it +shouldn't be forgotten how he'd fought for law and order at Trafalgar +Square! That was the man all over!"</p> + +<p>His voice and manner achieved the excessive indifference which the +English type holds due from itself after any excess of feeling. Toye +also was himself again, his alert mind working keenly yet darkly in his acute eyes.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if it was a murder?" he speculated. "I bet it wasn't a deliberate murder."</p> + +<p>"What else could it have been?"</p> + +<p>"Kind of manslaughter. Deliberate murderers don't trust to chance +weapons hanging on their victims' walls."</p> + +<p>"You forget," said Cazalet, "that he was robbed as well."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p><p>"Do they claim that?" said Hilton Toye. "I guess I skipped some. Where +does it say anything about his being robbed?"</p> + +<p>"Here!" Cazalet had scanned the paper eagerly; his finger drummed upon +the place. "'The police,'" he read out, in some sort of triumph, "'have +now been furnished with a full description of the missing watch and +trinkets and the other articles believed to have been taken from the +pockets of the deceased.' What's that but robbery?"</p> + +<p>"You're dead right," said Toye. "I missed that somehow. Yet who in +thunder tracks a man down to rob and murder him in his own home? But +when you've brained a man, because you couldn't keep your hands off him, +you might deliberately do all the rest to make it seem like the work of thieves."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p><p>Hilton Toye looked a judge of deliberation as he measured his +irrefutable words. He looked something more. Cazalet could not tear his +blue eyes from the penetrating pair that met them with a somber twinkle, +an enlightened gusto, quite uncomfortably suggestive at such a moment.</p> + +<p>"You aren't a detective, by any chance, are you?" cried Cazalet, with +rather clumsy humor.</p> + +<p>"No, sir! But I've often thought I wouldn't mind being one," said Toye, +chuckling. "I rather figure I might do something at it. If things don't +go my way in your old country, and they put up a big enough reward, why, +here's a man I knew and a place I know, and I might have a mind to try my hand."</p> + +<p>They went ashore together, and to the same hotel at Southampton for the +night. Perhaps neither could have said from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> which side the initiative +came; but midnight found the chance pair with their legs under the same +heavy Victorian mahogany, devouring cold beef, ham and pickles as +phlegmatically as commercial travelers who had never been off the island +in their lives. Yet surely Cazalet was less depressed than he had been +before landing; the old English ale in a pewter tankard even elicited a +few of those anecdotes and piquant comparisons in which his conversation +was at its best. It was at its worst on general questions, or on +concrete topics not introduced by himself; and into this category, +perhaps not unnaturally, fell such further particulars of the Thames +Valley mystery as were to be found in an evening paper at the inn. They +included a fragmentary report of the adjourned inquest, and the actual +offer of such a reward, by the dead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> man's firm, for the apprehension of +his murderer, as made Toye's eyes glisten in his sagacious head.</p> + +<p>But Cazalet, though he had skimmed the many-headed column before sitting +down to supper, flatly declined to discuss the tragedy his first night ashore.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>III</span> <span class="smaller">IN THE TRAIN</span></h2> + +<p>Discussion was inevitable on the way up to town next morning.</p> + +<p>The silly season was by no means over; a sensational inquest was worth +every inch that it could fill in most of the morning papers; and the two +strange friends, planted opposite each other in the first-class smoker, +traveled inland simultaneously engrossed in a copious report of the +previous day's proceedings at the coroner's court.</p> + +<p>Of solid and significant fact, they learned comparatively little that +they had been unable to gather or deduce the night before. There was the +medical evidence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> valuable only as tracing the fatal blow to some such +weapon as the missing truncheon; there was the butler's evidence, +finally timing the commission of the deed to within ten minutes; there +was the head gardener's evidence, confirming and supplementing that of +the butler; and there was the evidence of a footman who had answered the +telephone an hour or two before the tragedy occurred.</p> + +<p>The butler had explained that the dinner-hour was seven thirty; that, +not five minutes before, he had seen his master come down-stairs and +enter the library, where, at seven fifty-five, on going to ask if he had +heard the gong, he had obtained no answer but found the door locked on +the inside; that he had then hastened round by the garden, and in +through the French window, to discover the deceased gentleman lying in his blood.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p><p>The head gardener, who lived in the lodge, had sworn to having seen a +bareheaded man rush past his windows and out of the gates about the same +hour, as he knew by the sounding of the gong up at the house; they often +heard it at the lodge, in warm weather when the windows were open, and +the gardener swore that he himself had heard it on this occasion.</p> + +<p>The footman appeared to have been less positive as to the time of the +telephone call, thought it was between four and five, but remembered the +conversation very well. The gentleman had asked whether Mr. Craven was +at home, had been told that he was out motoring, asked when he would be +back, told he couldn't say, but before dinner some time, and what name +should he give, whereupon the gentleman had rung off without <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>answering. +The footman thought he was a gentleman, from the way he spoke. But +apparently the police had not yet succeeded in tracing the call.</p> + +<p>"Is it a difficult thing to do?" asked Cazalet, touching on this last +point early in the discussion, which even he showed no wish to avoid +this morning. He had dropped his paper, to find that Toye had already +dropped his, and was gazing at the flying English fields with thoughtful +puckers about his somber eyes.</p> + +<p>"If you ask me," he replied, "I should like to know what wasn't +difficult connected with the telephone system in this country! Why, you +don't have a system, and that's all there is to it. But it's not at that +end they'll put the salt on their man."</p> + +<p>"Which end will it be, then?"</p> + +<p>"The river end. That hat, or cap. Do you see what the gardener says +about the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> man who ran out bareheaded? That gardener deserves to be +cashiered for not getting a move on him in time to catch that man, even +if he did think he'd only been swiping flowers. But if he went and left +his hat or his cap behind him, that should be good enough in the long +run. It's the very worst thing you <i>can</i> leave. Ever hear of Franz Müller?"</p> + +<p>Cazalet had not heard of that immortal notoriety, nor did his ignorance +appear to trouble him at all, but it was becoming more and more clear +that Hilton Toye took an almost unhealthy interest in the theory and +practise of violent crime.</p> + +<p>"Franz Müller," he continued, "left his hat behind him, only that and +nothing more, but it brought him to the gallows even though he got over +to the other side first. He made the mistake of taking a slow steamer, +and that's just about the one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> mistake they never did make at Scotland +Yard. Give them a nice, long, plain-sailing stern-chase and they get +there by bedtime—wireless or no wireless!"</p> + +<p>But Cazalet was in no mind to discuss other crimes, old or new; and he +closed the digression by asserting somewhat roundly that neither hat nor +cap had been left behind in the only case that interested him.</p> + +<p>"Don't be too sure," said Toye. "Even Scotland Yard doesn't show all its +hand at once, in the first inquiry that comes along. They don't give out +any description of the man that ran away, but you bet it's being +circulated around every police office in the United Kingdom."</p> + +<p>Cazalet said they would give it out fast enough if they had it to give. +By the way, he was surprised to see that the head gardener was the same +who had been at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> Uplands in his father's time; he must be getting an old +man, and no doubt shakier on points of detail than he would be likely to +admit. Cazalet instanced the alleged hearing of the gong as in itself an +unconvincing statement. It was well over a hundred yards from the gates +to the house, and there were no windows to open in the hall where the +gong would be rung.</p> + +<p>He sighed heavily as in his turn he looked out at the luxuriant little +paddocks and the old tiled homesteads after every two or three. But he +was not thinking of the weather-board and corrugated iron strewn so +sparsely over the yellow wilds that he had left behind him. The old +English panorama flew by for granted, as he had taken it before ever he +went out to Australia. It was as though he had never been out at all.</p> + +<p>"I've dreamed of the old spot so often,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> he said at length. "I'm not +thinking of the night before last—I meant in the bush—and now to think +of a thing like this happening, there, in the old governor's den, of all places!"</p> + +<p>"Seems like a kind of poetic justice," said Hilton Toye.</p> + +<p>"It does. It is!" cried Cazalet, fetching moist yet fiery eyes in from +the fields. "I said to you the other night that Henry Craven never was a +white man, and I won't unsay it now. Nobody may ever know what he's done +to bring this upon him. But those who really knew the man, and suffered +for it, can guess the kind of thing!"</p> + +<p>"Exactly," murmured Toye, as though he had just said as much himself. +His dark eyes twinkled with deliberation and debate. "How long is it, by +the way, that they gave that clerk and friend of yours?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p><p>A keen look pressed the startling question; at least, it startled +Cazalet.</p> + +<p>"You mean Scruton? What on earth made you think of him?"</p> + +<p>"Talking of those who suffered for being the dead man's friends, I +guess," said Toye. "Was it fourteen years?"</p> + +<p>"That was it."</p> + +<p>"But I guess fourteen doesn't mean fourteen, ordinarily, if a prisoner +behaves himself?"</p> + +<p>"No, I believe not. In fact, it doesn't."</p> + +<p>"Do you know how much it would mean?"</p> + +<p>"A little more than ten."</p> + +<p>"Then Scruton may be out now?"</p> + +<p>"Just."</p> + +<p>Toye nodded with detestable aplomb. "That gives you something to chew +on," said he. "Of course, I don't say he's our man—"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p><p>"I should think you didn't!" cried Cazalet, white to the lips with +sudden fury.</p> + +<p>Toye looked disconcerted and distressed, but at the same time frankly +puzzled. He apologized none the less readily, with almost ingenious +courtesy and fulness, but he ended by explaining himself in a single +sentence, and that told more than the rest of his straightforward +eloquence put together.</p> + +<p>"If a man had done you down like that, wouldn't you want to kill him the +very moment you came out, Cazalet?"</p> + +<p>The creature of impulse was off at a tangent. "I'd forgive him if he did +it, too!" he exclaimed. "I'd move heaven and earth to save him, guilty +or not guilty. Wouldn't you in my place?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Hilton Toye. "It depends on the place you're in, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +guess!" And the keen dark eyes came drilling into Cazalet's skull like augers.</p> + +<p>"I thought I told you?" he explained impatiently. "We were in the office +together; he was good to me, winked at the business hours I was inclined +to keep, let me down lighter in every way than I deserved. You may say +it was part of his game. But I take people as I find them. And then, as +I told you, Scruton was ten thousand times more sinned against than sinning."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure? If you knew it at the time—"</p> + +<p>"I didn't. I told you so the last night."</p> + +<p>"Then it came to you in Australia?" said Toye, with a smile as whimsical +as the suggestion.</p> + +<p>"It did!" cried Cazalet unexpectedly. "In a letter," he added with hesitation.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p><p>"Well, I mustn't ask questions," said Hilton Toye, and began folding up +his newspaper with even more than his usual deliberation.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll tell you!" cried Cazalet ungraciously. "It's my own fault for +telling you so much. It was in a letter from Scruton himself that I +heard the whole thing. I'd written to him—toward the end—suggesting +things. He managed to get an answer through that would never have passed +the prison authorities. And—and that's why I came home just when I +did," concluded Cazalet; "that's why I didn't wait till after shearing. +He's been through about enough, and I've had more luck than I deserved. +I meant to take him back with me, to keep the books on our station, if +you want to know!" The brusk voice trembled.</p> + +<p>Toye let his newspaper slide to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> floor. "But that was fine!" he +exclaimed simply. "That's as fine an action as I've heard of in a long time."</p> + +<p>"If it comes off," said Cazalet in a gloomy voice.</p> + +<p>"Don't you worry. It'll come off. Is he out yet, for sure? I mean, do +you know that he is?"</p> + +<p>"Scruton? Yes—since you press it—he wrote to tell me that he was +coming out even sooner than he expected."</p> + +<p>"Then he can stop out for me," said Hilton Toye. "I guess I'm not +running for that reward!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>IV</span> <span class="smaller">DOWN THE RIVER</span></h2> + +<p>At Waterloo the two men parted, with a fair exchange of fitting +speeches, none of which rang really false. And yet Cazalet found himself +emphatically unable to make any plans at all for the next few days; +also, he seemed in two minds now about a Jermyn Street hotel previously +mentioned as his immediate destination; and his step was indubitably +lighter as he went off first of all to the loop-line, to make sure of +some train or other that he might have to take before the day was out.</p> + +<p>In the event he did not take that train or any other; for the new +miracle of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> new traffic, the new smell of the horseless streets, and +the newer joys of the newest of new taxicabs, all worked together and so +swiftly upon Cazalet's organism that he had a little colloquy with his +smart young driver instead of paying him in Jermyn Street. He nearly did +pay him off, and with something more than his usual impetuosity, as +either a liar or a fool with no sense of time or space.</p> + +<p>"But that's as quick as the train, my good fellow!" blustered Cazalet.</p> + +<p>"Quicker," said the smart young fellow without dipping his cigarette, +"if you were going by the old Southwestern!"</p> + +<p>The very man, and especially the manners that made or marred him, was +entirely new to Cazalet as a product of the old country. But he had come +from the bush, and he felt as though he might have been back there but +for the smell of petrol<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> and the cry of the motor-horn from end to end +of those teeming gullies of bricks and mortar.</p> + +<p>He had accompanied his baggage just as far as the bureau of the Jermyn +Street hotel. Any room they liked, and he would be back some time before +midnight; that was his card, they could enter his name for themselves. +He departed, pipe in mouth, open knife in one hand, plug tobacco in the +other; and remarks were passed in Jermyn Street as the taxi bounced out +west in ballast.</p> + +<p>But indeed it was too fine a morning to waste another minute indoors, +even to change one's clothes, if Cazalet had possessed any better than +the ones he wore and did not rather glory in his rude attire. He was not +wearing leggings, and he did wear a collar, but he quite saw that even +so he might have cut an ignominious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> figure on the flags of Kensington +Gore; no, now it was the crowded High Street, and now it was humble +Hammersmith. He had told his smart young man to be sure and go that way. +He had been at St. Paul's school as a boy—with old Venus Potts—and he +wanted to see as many landmarks as he could. This one towered and was +gone as nearly in a flash as a great red mountain could. It seemed to +Cazalet, but perhaps he expected it to seem, that the red was a little +mellower, the ivy a good deal higher on the great warm walls. He noted +the time by the ruthless old clock. It was after one already; he would +miss his lunch. What did that matter?</p> + +<p>Lunch?</p> + +<p>Drunken men do not miss their meals, and Cazalet was simply and +comfortably drunk with the delight of being back. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> had never dreamed +of its getting into his head like this; at the time he did not realize +that it had. That was the beauty of his bout. He knew well enough what +he was doing and seeing, but inwardly he was literally blind. Yesterday +was left behind and forgotten like the Albert Memorial, and to-morrow +was still as distant as the sea, if there were such things as to-morrow and the sea.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile what vivid miles of dazzling life, what a subtle autumn flavor +in the air; how cool in the shadows, how warm in the sun; what a +sparkling old river it was, to be sure; and yet, if those weren't the +first of the autumn tints on the trees in Castlenau.</p> + +<p>There went a funeral, on its way to Mortlake! The taxi overhauled it at +a callous speed. Cazalet just had time to tear off his great soft hat. +It was actually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> the first funeral he had seen since his own father's; +no wonder his radiance suffered a brief eclipse. But in another moment +he was out on Barnes' Common. Then, in the Lower Richmond Road, the +smart young man began to change speed and crawl, and at once there was +something fresh to think about. The Venture and its team of grays, +Oxford and London, was trying to pass a motor-bus just ahead, and a gray +leader was behaving as though it also had just landed from the bush. +Cazalet thought of a sailing-ship and a dreadnought, and the +sailing-ship thrown up into the wind. Then he wondered how one of Cobb's +bush coaches would have behaved, and thought it might have played the barge!</p> + +<p>It had been the bicycle age when he went away; now it was the motor age, +and the novelty and contrast were endless to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> a simple mind under the +influence of forgotten yet increasingly familiar scenes. But nothing was +lost on Cazalet that great morning; even a milk-float entranced him, +itself enchanted, with its tall can turned to gold and silver in the +sun. But now he was on all but holy ground. It was not so holy with +these infernal electric trams; still he knew every inch of it; and now, +thank goodness, he was off the lines at last.</p> + +<p>"Slower!" he shouted to his smart young man. He could not say that no +notice was taken of the command. But a wrought-iron gate on the left, +with a covered way leading up to the house, and the garden (that he +could not see) leading down to the river, and the stables (that he +could) across the road—all that was past and gone in a veritable +twinkling. And though he turned round and looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> back, it was only to +get a sightless stare from sightless windows, to catch on a board "<i>This +Delightful Freehold Residence with Grounds and Stabling</i>," and to echo +the epithet with an appreciative grunt.</p> + +<p>Five or six minutes later the smart young man was driving really slowly +along a narrow road between patent wealth and blatant semi-gentility; on +the left good grounds, shaded by cedar and chestnut, and on the right a +row of hideous little houses, as pretentious as any that ever let for +forty pounds within forty minutes of Waterloo.</p> + +<p>"This can't be it!" shouted Cazalet. "It can't be here—stop! <i>Stop!</i> I +tell you!"</p> + +<p>A young woman had appeared in one of the overpowering wooden porticoes; +two or three swinging strides were bringing her down the silly little +path to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> wicket-gate with the idiotic name; there was no time to +open it before Cazalet blundered up, and shot his hand across to get a +grasp as firm and friendly as he gave.</p> + +<p>"Blanchie!"</p> + +<p>"Sweep!"</p> + +<p>They were their two nursery names, hers no improvement on the proper +monosyllable, and his a rather dubious token of pristine proclivities. +But out both came as if they were children still, and children who had +been just long enough apart to start with a good honest mutual stare.</p> + +<p>"You aren't a bit altered," declared the man of thirty-three, with a +note not entirely tactful in his admiring voice. But his old chum only laughed.</p> + +<p>"Fiddle!" she cried. "But you're not altered enough. Sweep, I'm +disappointed in you. Where's your beard?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p><p>"I had it off the other day. I always meant to," he explained, "before +the end of the voyage. I wasn't going to land like a wild man of the +woods, you know!"</p> + +<p>"Weren't you! I call it mean."</p> + +<p>Her scrutiny became severe, but softened again at the sight of his +clutched wide-awake and curiously characterless, shapeless suit.</p> + +<p>"You may well look!" he cried, delighted that she should. "They're awful +old duds, I know, but you would think them a wonder if you saw where +they came from: a regular roadside shanty in a forsaken township at the +back of beyond. Extraordinary cove, the chap who made them; puts in +every stitch himself, learns Shakespeare while he's at it, knew Lindsay +Gordon and Marcus Clarke—"</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to interrupt," said Blanche, laughing, "but there's your taxi +ticking up twopence every quarter of an hour,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> and I can't let it go on +without warning you. Where have you come from?"</p> + +<p>He told her with a grin, was roundly reprimanded for his extravagance, +but brazened it out by giving the smart young man a sovereign before her +eyes. After that, she said he had better come in before the neighbors +came out and mobbed him for a millionaire. And he followed her indoors +and up-stairs, into a little new den crowded with some of the big old +things he could remember in a very different setting. But if the room +was small it had a balcony that was hardly any smaller, on top of that +unduly imposing porch; and out there, overlooking the fine grounds +opposite, were basket chairs and a table, hot with the Indian summer sun.</p> + +<p>"I hope you are not shocked at my abode," said Blanche. "I'm afraid I +can't help it if you are. It's just big enough for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> Martha and me; you +remember old Martha, don't you? You'll have to come and see her, but +she'll be horribly disappointed about your beard!"</p> + +<p>Coming through the room, stopping to greet a picture and a bookcase +(filling a wall each) as old friends, Cazalet had descried a photograph +of himself with that appendage. He had threatened to take the beastly +thing away, and Blanche had told him he had better not. But it did not +occur to Cazalet that it was the photograph to which Hilton Toye had +referred, or that Toye must have been in this very room to see it. In +these few hours he had forgotten the man's existence, at least in so far +as it associated itself with Blanche Macnair.</p> + +<p>"The others all wanted me to live near them," she continued, "but as no +two of them are in the same county it would have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> meant a caravan. +Besides, I wasn't going to be transplanted at my age. Here one has +everybody one ever knew, except those who escape by emigrating, simply +at one's mercy on a bicycle. There's more golf and tennis than I can +find time to play; and I still keep the old boat in the old boat-house +at Littleford, because it hasn't let or sold yet, I'm sorry to say."</p> + +<p>"So I saw as I passed," said Cazalet. "That board hit me hard!"</p> + +<p>"The place being empty hits me harder," rejoined the last of the +Macnairs. "It's going down in value every day like all the other +property about here, except this sort. Mind where you throw that match, +Sweep! I don't want you to set fire to my pampas-grass; it's the only tree I've got!"</p> + +<p>Cazalet laughed; she was making him laugh quite often. But the +pampas-grass,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> like the rest of the ridiculous little garden in front, +was obscured if not overhung by the balcony on which they sat. And the +subject seemed one to change.</p> + +<p>"It was simply glorious coming down," he said. "I wouldn't swap that +three-quarters of an hour for a bale of wool; but, I say, there are some +changes! The whole show in the streets is different. I could have +spotted it with my eyes and ears shut. They used to smell like a stable, +and now they smell like a lamp. And I used to think the old cabbies +could drive, but their job was child's play to the taximan's! We were at +Hammersmith before I could light my pipe, and almost down here before it +went out! But you can't think how every mortal thing on the way appealed +to me. The only blot was a funeral at Barnes; it seemed such a sin to be +buried on a day like this, and a fellow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> like me just coming home to +enjoy himself!"</p> + +<p>He had turned grave, but not graver than at the actual moment coming +down. Indeed, he was simply coming down again, for her benefit and his +own, without an ulterior trouble until Blanche took him up with a long +face of her own.</p> + +<p>"We've had a funeral here. I suppose you know?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I know."</p> + +<p>Her chair creaked as she leaned forward with an enthusiastic solemnity +that would have made her shriek if she had seen herself; but it had no +such effect on Cazalet.</p> + +<p>"I wonder who can have done it!"</p> + +<p>"So do the police, and they don't look much like finding out!"</p> + +<p>"It must have been for his watch and money, don't you think? And yet +they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> say he had so many enemies!" Cazalet kept silence; but she thought +he winced. "Of course it must have been the man who ran out of the +drive," she concluded hastily. "Where were you when it happened, Sweep?"</p> + +<p>Somewhat hoarsely he was recalling the Mediterranean movements of the +<i>Kaiser Fritz</i>, when at the first mention of the vessel's name he was firmly heckled.</p> + +<p>"Sweep, you <i>don't</i> mean to say you came by a German steamer?"</p> + +<p>"I do. It was the first going, and why should I waste a week? Besides, +you can generally get a cabin to yourself on the German line."</p> + +<p>"So that's why you're here before the end of the month," said Blanche. +"Well, I call it most unpatriotic; but the cabin to yourself was +certainly some excuse."</p> + +<p>"That reminds me!" he exclaimed. "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> hadn't it to myself all the way; +there was another fellow in with me from Genoa; and the last night on +board it came out that he knew you!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Who</i> can it have been?"</p> + +<p>"Toye, his name was. Hilton Toye."</p> + +<p>"An American man! Oh, but I know him very well," said Blanche in a tone +both strained and cordial. "He's great fun, Mr. Toye, with his +delightful Americanisms, and the perfectly delightful way he says them!"</p> + +<p>Cazalet puckered like the primitive man he was, when taken at all by +surprise; and that anybody, much less Blanche, should think Toye, of all +people, either "delightful" or "great fun" was certainly a surprise to +him, if it was nothing else. Of course it was nothing else, to his +immediate knowledge; still, he was rather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> ready to think that Blanche +was blushing, but forgot, if indeed he had been in a fit state to see it +at the time, that she had paid himself the same high compliment across +the gate. On the whole, it may be said that Cazalet was ruffled without +feeling seriously disturbed as to the essential issue which alone leaped to his mind.</p> + +<p>"Where did you meet the fellow?" he inquired, with the suitable +admixture of confidence and amusement.</p> + +<p>"In the first instance, at Engelberg."</p> + +<p>"Engelberg! Where's that?"</p> + +<p>"Only one of those places in Switzerland where everybody goes nowadays +for what they call winter sports."</p> + +<p>She was not even smiling at his arrogant ignorance; she was merely +explaining one geographical point and another of general information. A +close observer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> might have thought her almost anxious not to identify +herself too closely with a popular craze.</p> + +<p>"I dare say you mentioned it," said Cazalet, but rather as though he was +wondering why she had not.</p> + +<p>"I dare say I didn't! Everything won't go into an annual letter. It was +the winter before last—I went out with Betty and her husband."</p> + +<p>"And after that he took a place down here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Then I met him on the river the following summer, and found he'd +got rooms in one of the Nell Gwynne Cottages, if you call that a place."</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>But there was no more to see; there never had been much, but now Blanche +was standing up and gazing out of the balcony into the belt of singing +sunshine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> between the opposite side of the road and the invisible river +acres away.</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't we go down to Littleford and get out the boat if you're +really going to make an afternoon of it?" she said. "But you simply must +see Martha first; and while she's making herself fit to be seen, you +must take something for the good of the house. I'll bring it to you on a lordly tray."</p> + +<p>She brought him siphon, stoppered bottle, a silver biscuit-box of +ancient memories, and left him alone with them some little time; for the +young mistress, like her old retainer in another minute, was simply +dying to make herself more presentable. Yet when she had done so, and +came back like snow, in a shirt and skirt just home from the laundry, +she saw that he did not see the difference. His devouring eyes shone +neither more nor less;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> but he had also devoured every biscuit in the +box, though he had begun by vowing that he had lunched in town, and +stuck to the fable still.</p> + +<p>Old Martha had known him all his life, but best at the period when he +used to come to nursery tea at Littleford. She declared she would have +known him anywhere as he was, but she simply hadn't recognized him in +that photograph with his beard.</p> + +<p>"I can see where it's been," said Martha, looking him in the lower +temperate zone. "But I'm so glad you've had it off, Mr. Cazalet."</p> + +<p>"There you are, Blanchie!" crowed Cazalet. "You said she'd be +disappointed, but Martha's got better taste."</p> + +<p>"It isn't that, sir," said Martha earnestly. "It's because the dreadful +man who was seen running out of the drive, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> your old home, <i>he</i> had a +beard! It's in all the notices about him, and that's what's put me +against them, and makes me glad you've had yours off."</p> + +<p>Blanche turned to him with too ready a smile; but then she was really +not such a great age as she pretended, and she had never been in better +spirits in her life.</p> + +<p>"You hear, Sweep! I call it rather lucky for you that you were—"</p> + +<p>But just then she saw his face, and remembered the things that had been +said about Henry Craven by the Cazalets' friends, even ten years ago, +when she really had been a girl.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>V</span> <span class="smaller">AN UNTIMELY VISITOR</span></h2> + +<p>She really was one still, for in these days it is an elastic term, and +in Blanche's case there was no apparent reason why it should ever cease +to apply, or to be applied by every decent tongue except her own. If, +however, it be conceded that she herself had reached the purely mental +stage of some self-consciousness on the point of girlhood, it can not be +too clearly stated that it was the only point in which Blanche Macnair +had ever been self-conscious in her life.</p> + +<p>Much the best tennis-player among the ladies of the neighborhood, she +drove an almost unbecomingly long ball at golf,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> and never looked better +than when paddling her old canoe, or punting in the old punt. And yet, +this wonderful September afternoon, she did somehow look even better +than at either or any of those congenial pursuits, and that long before +they reached the river; in the empty house, which had known her as baby, +child and grown-up girl, to the companion of some part of all three +stages, she looked a more lustrous and a lovelier Blanche than he +remembered even of old.</p> + +<p>But she was not really lovely in the least; that also must be put beyond +the pale of misconception. Her hair was beautiful, and perhaps her skin, +and, in some lights, her eyes; the rest was not. It was yellow hair, not +golden, and Cazalet would have given all he had about him to see it down +again as in the oldest of old days; but there was more gold in her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +skin, for so the sun had treated it; and there was even hint or glint +(in certain lights, be it repeated) of gold mingling with the pure hazel +of her eyes. But in the dusty shadows of the empty house, moving like a +sunbeam across its bare boards, standing out against the discolored +walls in the place of remembered pictures not to be compared with her, +it was there that she was all golden and still a girl.</p> + +<p>They poked their noses into the old bogy-hole under the nursery stairs; +they swung the gate at the head of the next flight; they swore to +finger-marks on the panels that were all the walls of the top story, and +they had a laugh in every corner, childish crimes to reconstruct, quite +bitter battles to fight over again, but never a lump in either throat +that the other could have guessed was there. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> so out upon the leafy +lawn, shelving abruptly to the river; round first, however, to the +drying-green where the caretakers' garments were indeed drying +unashamed; but they knew each other well enough to laugh aloud, had +picked each other up much farther back than the point of parting ten +years ago, almost as far as the days of mixed cricket with a toy set, on +that very green.</p> + +<p>Then there was the poor old greenhouse, sagging in every slender timber, +broken as to every other cobwebbed pane, empty and debased within; they +could not bring themselves to enter here.</p> + +<p>Last of all there was the summer schoolroom over the boat-house, quite +apart from the house itself; scene of such safe yet reckless revels; in +its very aura late Victorian!</p> + +<p>It lay hidden in ivy at the end of a now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> neglected path; the +bow-windows overlooking the river were framed in ivy, like three matted, +whiskered, dirty, happy faces; one, with its lower sash propped open by +a broken plant-pot, might have been grinning a toothless welcome to two +once leading spirits of the place.</p> + +<p>Cazalet whittled a twig and wedged that sash up altogether; then he sat +himself on the sill, his long legs inside. But his knife had reminded +him of his plug tobacco. And his plug tobacco took him as straight back +to the bush as though the unsound floor had changed under their feet +into a magic carpet.</p> + +<p>"You simply have it put down to the man's account in the station books. +Nobody keeps ready money up at the bush, not even the price of a plug +like this; but the chap I'm telling you about (I can see him now, with +his great red beard and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> freckled fists) he swore I was charging him for +half a pound more than he'd ever had. I was station storekeeper, you +see; it was quite the beginning of things, and I'd have had to pay the +few bob myself, and be made to look so small that I shouldn't have had a +soul to call my own on the run. So I fought him for the difference; we +fought for twenty minutes behind the wood-heap; then he gave me best, +but I had to turn in till I could see again."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean that he—"</p> + +<p>Blanche had looked rather disgusted the moment before; now she was all +truculent suspense and indignation.</p> + +<p>"Beat me?" he cried. "Good Lord, no; but there was none too much in it."</p> + +<p>Fires died down in her hazel eyes, lay lambent as soft moonlight, +flickered into laughter before he had seen the fire.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p><p>"I'm afraid you're a very dangerous person," said Blanche.</p> + +<p>"You've got to be," he assured her; "it's the only way. Don't take a +word from anybody, unless you mean him to wipe his boots on you. I soon +found that out. I'd have given something to have learned the noble art +before I went out. Did I ever tell you how it was I first came across old Venus Potts?"</p> + +<p>He had told her at great length, to the exclusion of about every other +topic, in the second of the annual letters; and throughout the series +the inevitable name of Venus Potts had seldom cropped up without some +allusion to that Homeric encounter. But it was well worth while having +it all over again with the intricate and picaresque embroidery of a +tongue far mightier than the pen hitherto employed upon the incident. +Poor Blanche<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> had almost to hold her nose over the primary cause of +battle; but the dialogue was delightful, and Cazalet himself made a most +gallant and engaging figure as he sat on the sill and reeled it out. He +had always been a fluent teller of any happening, and Blanche a ready +commentator, capable of raising the general level of the entertainment +at any moment. But after all these centuries it was fun enough to listen +as long as he liked to go on; and perhaps she saw that he had more scope +where they were than he could have had in the boat, or it may have been +an unrealized spell that bound them both to their bare old haunt; but +there they were a good twenty minutes later, and old Venus Potts was +still on the magic <i>tapis</i>, though Cazalet had dropped his boasting for +a curiously humble, eager and yet ineffectual vein.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p><p>"Old Venus Potts!" he kept ejaculating. "You couldn't help liking him. +And he'd like you, my word!"</p> + +<p>"Is his wife nice?" Blanche wanted to know; but she was looking so +intently out her window, at the opposite end of the bow to Cazalet's, +that a man of the wider world might have thought of something else to talk about.</p> + +<p>Out her window she looked past a willow that had been part of the old +life, in the direction of an equally typical silhouette of patient +anglers anchored in a punt; they had not raised a rod between them +during all this time that Blanche had been out in Australia; but as a +matter of fact she never saw them, since, vastly to the credit of +Cazalet's descriptive powers, she was out in Australia still.</p> + +<p>"Nelly Potts?" he said. "Oh, a jolly good sort; you'd be awful pals."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p><p>"Should we?" said Blanche, just smiling at her invisible anglers.</p> + +<p>"I know you would," he assured her with immense conviction. "Of course +she can't do the things you do; but she can ride, my word! So she ought +to, when she's lived there all her life. The rooms aren't much, but the +verandas are what count most; they're better than any rooms. There are +two distinct ends to the station—it's like two houses; but of course +the barracks were good enough just for me."</p> + +<p>She knew about the bachelors' barracks; the annual letter had been +really very full; and then she was still out there, cultivating Nelly +Potts on a very deep veranda, though her straw hat and straw hair +remained in contradictory evidence against a very dirty window on the +Middlesex bank of the Thames. It was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> shame of the September sun to +show the dirt as it was doing; not only was there a great steady pool of +sunlight on the unspeakable floor, but a doddering reflection from the +river on the disreputable ceiling. Cazalet looked rather desperately +from one to the other, and both the calm pool and the rough were broken +by shadows, one more impressionistic than the other, of a straw hat over +a stack of straw hair, that had not gone out to Australia—yet.</p> + +<p>And of course just then a step sounded outside somewhere on some gravel. +Confound those caretakers! What were <i>they</i> doing, prowling about?</p> + +<p>"I say, Blanchie!" he blurted out. "I do believe you'd like it out +there, a sportswoman like you! I believe you'd take to it like a duck to water."</p> + +<p>He had floundered to his feet as well.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> He was standing over her, +feeling his way like a great fatuous coward, so some might have thought. +But it really looked as though Blanche was not attending to what he did +say; yet neither was she watching her little anglers stamped in jet upon +a silvery stream, nor even seeing any more of Nelly Potts in the +Australian veranda. She had come home from Australia, and come in from +the river, and she was watching the open door at the other end of the +old schoolroom, listening to those confounded steps coming nearer and +nearer—and Cazalet was gazing at her as though he really had said +something that deserved an answer.</p> + +<p>"Why, Miss Blanche!" cried a voice. "And your old lady-in-waiting +figured I should find you flown!"</p> + +<p>Hilton Toye was already a landsman and a Londoner from top to toe. He +was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> perfectly dressed—for Bond Street—and his native simplicity of +bearing and address placed him as surely and firmly in the present +picture. He did not look the least bit out of it. But Cazalet did, in an +instant; his old bush clothes changed at once into a merely shabby suit +of despicable cut; the romance dropped out of them and their wearer, as +he stood like a trussed turkey-cock, and watched a bunch of hothouse +flowers presented to the lady with a little gem of a natural, courteous, +and yet characteristically racy speech.</p> + +<p>To the lady, mark you; for she was one, on the spot; and Cazalet was a +man again, and making a mighty effort to behave himself because the hour +of boy and girl was over.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Cazalet," said Toye, "I guess you want to know what in thunder I'm +doing on your tracks so soon. It's hog-luck,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> sir, because I wanted to +see you quite a lot, but I never thought I'd strike you right here. Did +you hear the news?"</p> + +<p>"No! What?"</p> + +<p>There was no need to inquire as to the class of news; the immediate past +had come back with Toye into Cazalet's life; and even in Blanche's +presence, even in her schoolroom, the old days had flown into their +proper place and size in the perspective.</p> + +<p>"They've made an arrest," said Toye; and Cazalet nodded as though he had +quite expected it, which set Blanche off trying to remember something he +had said at the other house; but she had not succeeded when she noticed +the curious pallor of his chin and forehead.</p> + +<p>"Scruton?" he just asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir! This morning," said Hilton Toye.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p><p>"You don't mean <i>the</i> poor man?" cried Blanche, looking from one to the +other.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he does," said Cazalet gloomily. He stared out at the river, +seeing nothing in his turn, though one of the anglers was actually busy +with his reel.</p> + +<p>"But I thought Mr. Scruton was still—" Blanche remembered him, +remembered dancing with him; she did not like to say, "in prison."</p> + +<p>"He came out the other day," sighed Cazalet. "But how like the police +all over! Give a dog a bad name, and trust them to hunt it down and +shoot it at sight!"</p> + +<p>"I judge it's not so bad as all that in this country," said Hilton Toye. +"That's more like the police theory about Scruton, I guess, bar drawing the bead."</p> + +<p>"When did you hear of it?" said Cazalet.</p> + +<p>"It was on the tape at the Savoy when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> I got there. So I made an +inquiry, and I figured to look in at the Kingston Court on my way to +call upon Miss Blanche. You see, I was kind of interested in all you'd +told me about the case."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Well, that was my end of the situation. As luck and management would +have it between them, I was in time to hear your man—"</p> + +<p>"Not my man, please! You thought of him yourself," said Cazalet sharply.</p> + +<p>"Well, anyway, I was in time to hear the proceedings opened against him. +They were all over in about a minute. He was remanded till next week."</p> + +<p>"How did he look?" and, "Had he a beard?" demanded Cazalet and Blanche simultaneously.</p> + +<p>"He looked like a sick man," said Toye, with something more than his +usual <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>deliberation in answering or asking questions. "Yes, Miss +Blanche, he had a beard worthy of a free citizen."</p> + +<p>"They let them grow one, if they like, before they come out," said +Cazalet, with the nod of knowledge.</p> + +<p>"Then I guess he was a wise man not to take it off," rejoined Hilton +Toye. "That would only prejudice his case, if it's going to be one of +identity, with that head gardener playing lead in the witness-stand."</p> + +<p>"Old Savage!" snorted Cazalet. "Why, he was a dotard in our time; they +couldn't hang a dog on his evidence!"</p> + +<p>"Still," said Blanche, "I'd rather have it than circumstantial evidence, +wouldn't you, Mr. Toye?"</p> + +<p>"No, Miss Blanche, I would not," replied Toye, with unhesitating candor. +"The worst evidence in the world, in my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> opinion, and I've given the +matter some thought, is the evidence of identity." He turned to Cazalet, +who had betrayed a quickened interest in his views. "Shall I tell you +why? Think how often you're not so sure if you have seen a man before or +if you never have! You kind of shrink from nodding, or else you nod +wrong; if you didn't ever have that feeling, then you're not like any +other man I know."</p> + +<p>"I have!" cried Cazalet. "I've had it all my life, even in the wilds; +but I never thought of it before."</p> + +<p>"Think of it now," said Toye, "and you'll see there may be flaws in the +best evidence of identity that money can buy. But circumstantial +evidence can't lie, Miss Blanche, if you get enough of it. If the links +fit in, to prove that a certain person was in a certain place at a +certain time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> I guess that's worth all the oaths of all the +eye-witnesses that ever saw daylight!"</p> + +<p>Cazalet laughed harshly, as for no apparent reason he led the way into +the garden. "Mr. Toye's made a study of these things," he fired over his +shoulder. "He should have been a Sherlock Holmes, and rather wishes he was one!"</p> + +<p>"Give me time," said Toye, laughing. "I may come along that way yet."</p> + +<p>Cazalet faced him in a frame of tangled greenery. "You told me you wouldn't!"</p> + +<p>"I did, sir, but that was before they put salt on this poor old crook. +If you're right, and he's not the man, shouldn't you say that rather +altered the situation?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>VI</span> <span class="smaller">VOLUNTARY SERVICE</span></h2> + +<p>"And why do you think he can't have done it?"</p> + +<p>Cazalet had trundled the old canoe over the rollers, and Blanche was +hardly paddling in the glassy strip alongside the weir. Big drops +clustered on her idle blades, and made tiny circles as they met +themselves in the shining mirror. But below the lock there had been +something to do, and Blanche had done it deftly and silently, with +almost equal capacity and grace. It had given her a charming flush and +sparkle; and, what with the sun's bare hand on her yellow hair, she now +looked even bonnier than indoors, yet not quite,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> quite such a girl. But +then every bit of the boy had gone out of Cazalet. So that hour stolen +from the past was up forever.</p> + +<p>"Why do the police think the other thing?" he retorted. "What have they +got to go on? That's what I want to know. I agree with Toye in one +thing." Blanche looked up quickly. "I wouldn't trust old Savage an inch. +I've been thinking about him and his precious evidence. Do you realize +that it's quite dark now soon after seven? It was pretty thick saying +his man was bareheaded, with neither hat nor cap left behind to prove +it! Yet now it seems he's put a beard to him, and next we shall have the +color of his eyes!"</p> + +<p>Blanche laughed at his vigor of phrase; this was more like the old, +hot-tempered, sometimes rather overbearing Sweep. Something had made him +jump to the conclusion that Scruton could not possibly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> have killed Mr. +Craven, whatever else he might have done in days gone by. So it simply +<i>was</i> impossible, and anybody who took the other side, or had a word to +say for the police, as a force not unknown to look before it leaped, +would have to reckon henceforth with Sweep Cazalet.</p> + +<p>Mr. Toye already had reckoned with him, in a little debate begun outside +the old summer schoolroom at Littleford, and adjourned rather than +finished at the iron gate into the road. In her heart of hearts Blanche +could not say that Cazalet had the best of the argument, except, indeed, +in the matter of heated emphasis and scornful asseveration. It was +difficult, however, to know what line he really took; for while he +scouted the very notion of uncorroborated identification by old Savage, +he discredited with equal warmth all Toye's contentions on behalf of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>circumstantial evidence. Toye had advanced a general principle with +calm ability, but Cazalet could not be shifted from the particular +position he was so eager to defend, and would only enter into abstract +questions to beg them out of hand.</p> + +<p>Blanche rather thought that neither quite understood what the other +meant; but she could not blink the fact that the old friend had neither +the dialectical mind nor the unfailing courtesy of the new. That being +so, with her perception she might have changed the subject; but she +could see that Cazalet was thinking of nothing else; and no wonder, +since they were approaching the scene of the tragedy and his own old +home, with each long dip of her paddle.</p> + +<p>It had been his own wish to start upstream; but she could see the +wistful pain in his eyes as they fell once more upon the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> red turrets +and the smooth green lawn of Uplands; and she neither spoke nor looked +at him again until he spoke to her.</p> + +<p>"I see they've got the blinds down still," he said detachedly. "What's +happened to Mrs. Craven?"</p> + +<p>"I hear she went into a nursing home before the funeral."</p> + +<p>"Then there's nobody there?"</p> + +<p>"It doesn't look as if there was, does it?" said poor Blanche.</p> + +<p>"I expect we should find Savage somewhere. Would you very much mind, +Blanche? I should rather like—if it was just setting foot—with you—"</p> + +<p>But even that effective final pronoun failed to bring any buoyancy back +into his voice; for it was not in the least effective as he said it, and +he no longer looked her in the face. But this all seemed natural to +Blanche, in the manifold and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>overlapping circumstances of the case. She +made for the inlet at the upper end of the lawn. And her prompt +unquestioning acquiescence shamed Cazalet into further and franker +explanation, before he could let her land to please him.</p> + +<p>"You don't know how I feel this!" he exclaimed quite miserably. "I mean +about poor old Scruton; he's gone through so much as it is, whatever he +may have done to deserve it long ago. And he wasn't the only one, or the +worst; some day I'll tell you how I know, but you may take it from me +that's so. The real villain's gone to his account. I won't pretend I'm +sorry for him. <i>De mortuis</i> doesn't apply if you've got to invent the +<i>bonum</i>! But Scruton—after ten years—only think of it! Is it +conceivable that he should go and do a thing like this the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> very moment +he gets out? I ask you, is it even conceivable?"</p> + +<p>He asked her with something of the ferocity with which he had turned on +Toye for suggesting that the police might have something up their +sleeves, and be given a chance. But Blanche understood him. And now she +showed herself golden to the core, almost as an earnest of her fitness +for the fires before her.</p> + +<p>"Poor fellow," she cried, "he has a friend in you, at any rate! And I'll +help you to help him, if there's any way I can?"</p> + +<p>He clutched her hand, but only as he might have clutched a man's.</p> + +<p>"You can't do anything; but I won't forget that," he almost choked. "I +meant to stand by him in a very different way. He'd been down to the +depths, and I'd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> come up a bit; then he was good to me as a lad, and it +was my father's partner who was the ruin of him. I seemed to owe him +something, and now—now I'll stand by him whatever happens and—whatever +<i>has</i> happened!"</p> + +<p>Then they landed in the old, old inlet. Cazalet knew every knot in the +post to which he tied Blanche's canoe.</p> + +<p>It was a very different place, this Uplands, from poor old Littleford on +the lower reach. The grounds were five or six acres instead of about +one, and a house in quite another class stood farther back from the +river and very much farther from the road.</p> + +<p>The inlet began the western boundary, which continued past the +boat-house in the shape of a high hedge, a herbaceous border (not what +it had been in the old days), and a gravel path. This path was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> screened +from the lawn by a bank of rhododendrons, as of course were the back +yard and kitchen premises, past which it led into the front garden, +eventually debouching into the drive. It was the path along which +Cazalet led the way this afternoon, and Blanche at his heels was so +struck by something that she could not help telling him he knew his way very well.</p> + +<p>"Every inch of it!" he said bitterly. "But so I ought, if anybody does."</p> + +<p>"But these rhododendrons weren't here in your time. They're the one +improvement. Don't you remember how the path ran round to the other end +of the yard? This gate into it wasn't made."</p> + +<p>"No more it was," said Cazalet, as they came up to the new gate on the +right. It was open, and looking through they could see where the old +gateway had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> bricked. The rhododendrons topped the yard wall at +that point, masking it from the lawn, and making on the whole an +improvement of which anybody but a former son of the house might have +taken more account.</p> + +<p>He said he could see no other change. He pretended to recognize the very +blinds that were down and flapping in the kitchen windows facing west. +But for the fact that these windows were wide open, the whole place +seemed as deserted as Littleford; but just past the windows, and flush +with them, was the tradesmen's door, and the two trespassers were barely +abreast of it when this door opened and disgorged a man.</p> + +<p>The man was at first sight a most incongruous figure for the back +premises of any house, especially in the country. He was tall, rather +stout, very powerfully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> built and rather handsome in his way; his +top-hat shone like his patent-leather boots, and his gray cutaway suit +hung well in front and was duly creased as to the trousers; yet not for +one moment was this personage in the picture, in the sense in which +Hilton Toye had stepped into the Littleford picture.</p> + +<p>"May I ask what you're doing here?" he demanded bluntly of the male intruder.</p> + +<p>"No harm, I hope," replied Cazalet, smiling, much to his companion's +relief. She had done him an injustice, however, in dreading an explosion +when they were both obviously in the wrong, and she greatly admired the +tone he took so readily. "I know we've no business here whatever; but it +happens to be my old home, and I only landed from Australia last night. +I'm on the river for the first time, and simply had to have a look round."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p><p>The other big man had looked far from propitiated by the earlier of +these remarks, but the closing sentences had worked a change.</p> + +<p>"Are you young Mr. Cazalet?" he cried.</p> + +<p>"I am, or rather I was," laughed Cazalet, still on his mettle.</p> + +<p>"You've read all about the case then, I don't mind betting!" exclaimed +the other with a jerk of his topper toward the house behind him.</p> + +<p>"I've read all I found in the papers last night and this morning, and +such arrears as I've been able to lay my hands on," said Cazalet. "But, +as I tell you, my ship only got in from Australia last night, and I came +round all the way in her. There was nothing in the English papers when +we touched at Genoa."</p> + +<p>"I see, I see." The man was still <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>looking him up and down. "Well, Mr. +Cazalet, my name's Drinkwater, and I'm from Scotland Yard. I happen to +be in charge of the case."</p> + +<p>"I guessed as much," said Cazalet, and this surprised Blanche more than +anything else from him. Yet nothing about him was any longer like the +Sweep of other days, or of any previous part of that very afternoon. And +this was also easy to understand on reflection; for if he meant to stand +by the hapless Scruton, guilty or not guilty, he could not perhaps begin +better than by getting on good terms with the police. But his ready +tact, and in that case cunning, were certainly a revelation to one who +had known him marvelously as boy and youth.</p> + +<p>"I mustn't ask questions," he continued, "but I see you're still +searching for things, Mr. Drinkwater."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p><p>"Still minding our own job," said Mr. Drinkwater genially. They had +sauntered on with him to the corner of the house, and seen a bowler hat +bobbing in the shrubbery down the drive. Cazalet laughed like a man.</p> + +<p>"Well, I needn't tell you I know every inch of the old place," he said; +"that is, barring alterations," as Blanche caught his eye. "But I expect +this search is harrowed, rather?"</p> + +<p>"Rather," said Mr. Drinkwater, standing still in the drive. He had also +taken out a presentation gold half-hunter, suitably inscribed in memory +of one of his more bloodless victories. But Cazalet could always be +obtuse, and now he refused to look an inch lower than the +detective-inspector's bright brown eyes.</p> + +<p>"There's just one place that's occurred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> to me, Mr. Drinkwater, that +perhaps may not have occurred to you."</p> + +<p>"Where's that, Mr. Cazalet?"</p> + +<p>"In the room where—the room itself."</p> + +<p>Mr. Drinkwater's long stare ended in an indulgent smile. "You can show +me if you like," said he indifferently. "But I suppose you know we've got the man?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>VII</span> <span class="smaller">AFTER MICHELANGELO</span></h2> + +<p>"I was thinking of his cap," said Cazalet, but only as they returned to +the tradesmen's door, and just as Blanche put in her word, "What about me?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Drinkwater eyed the trim white figure standing in the sun. "The more +the merrier!" his grim humor had it. "I dare say you'll be able to teach +us a thing or two as well, miss."</p> + +<p>She could not help nudging Cazalet in recognition of this shaft. But +Cazalet did not look round; he had now set foot in his old home.</p> + +<p>It was all strangely still and inactive, as though domestic animation +had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> suspended indefinitely. Yet the open kitchen door revealed a +female form in mufti; a sullen face looked out of the pantry as they +passed; and through the old green door (only now it was a red one) they +found another bowler hat bent over a pink paper at the foot of the +stairs. There was a glitter of eyes under the bowler's brim as Mr. +Drinkwater conducted his friends into the library.</p> + +<p>The library was a square room of respectable size, but very close and +dim with the one French window closed and curtained. But Mr. Drinkwater +shut the door as well, and added indescribably to the lighting and +atmospheric effects by switching on all the electric lamps; they burned +sullenly in the partial daylight, exposed as thin angry bunches of +red-hot wire in dusty bulbs.</p> + +<p>The electric light had been put in by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> the Cravens; all the other +fixtures in the room were as Cazalet remembered them. The bookshelves +contained different books, and now there were no busts on top. Certain +cupboards, grained and varnished in Victorian days, were undeniably +improved by being enameled white.</p> + +<p>But the former son of the house gave himself no time to waste in +sentimental comparisons. He tapped a pair of mahogany doors, like those +of a wardrobe let into the wall.</p> + +<p>"Have you looked in here?" demanded Cazalet in yet another key. His air +was almost authoritative now. Blanche could not understand it, but the +experienced Mr. Drinkwater smiled his allowances for a young fellow on +his native heath, after more years in the wilderness than were good for young fellows.</p> + +<p>"What's the use of looking in a cigar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> cupboard?" that dangerous man of +the world made mild inquiry.</p> + +<p>"Cigar cupboard!" echoed Cazalet in disgust. "Did he really only use it +for his cigars?"</p> + +<p>"A cigar cupboard," repeated Drinkwater, "and locked up at the time it +happened. What was it, if I may ask, in Mr. Cazalet's time?"</p> + +<p>"I remember!" came suddenly from Blanche; but Cazalet only said, "Oh, +well, if you know it was locked there's an end of it."</p> + +<p>Drinkwater went to the door and summoned his subordinate. "Just fetch +that chap from the pantry, Tom," said he; but the sullen sufferer from +police rule took his time, in spite of them, and was sharply rated when he appeared.</p> + +<p>"I thought you told me this was a cigar cupboard?" continued Drinkwater, +in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> browbeating tone of his first words to Cazalet outside.</p> + +<p>"So it is," said the man.</p> + +<p>"Then where's the key?"</p> + +<p>"How should I know? <i>I</i> never kept it!" cried the butler, crowing over +his oppressor for a change. "He would keep it on his own bunch; find his +watch, and all the other things that were missing from his pockets when +your men went through 'em, and you may find his keys, too!"</p> + +<p>Drinkwater gave his man a double signal; the door slammed on a petty +triumph for the servants' hall; but now both invaders remained within.</p> + +<p>"Try your hand on it, Tom," said the superior officer. "I'm a free-lance +here," he explained somewhat superfluously to the others, as Tom applied +himself to the lock in one mahogany door. "Man's been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> drinking, I +should say. He'd better be careful, because I don't take to him, drunk +or sober. I'm not surprised at his master not trusting him. It's just +possible that the place <i>was</i> open—he might have been getting out his +cigars before dinner—but I can't say I think there's much in it, Mr. Cazalet."</p> + +<p>It was open again—broken open—before many minutes; and certainly there +was not much in it, to be seen, except cigars. Boxes of these were +stacked on what might have been meant for a shallow desk (the whole +place was shallow as the wardrobe that the doors suggested, but lighted +high up at one end by a little barred window of its own) and according +to Cazalet a desk it had really been. His poor father ought never to +have been a business man; he ought to have been a poet. Cazalet said +this now as simply as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> he had said it to Hilton Toye on board the +<i>Kaiser Fritz</i>. Only he went rather farther for the benefit of the +gentlemen from Scotland Yard, who took not the faintest interest in the +late Mr. Cazalet, beyond poking their noses into his diminutive sanctum +and duly turning them up at what they saw.</p> + +<p>"He used to complain that he was never left in peace on Saturdays and +Sundays, which of course were his only quiet times for writing," said +the son, elaborating his tale with filial piety. "So once when I'd been +trying to die of scarlet fever, and my mother brought me back from +Hastings after she'd had me there some time, the old governor told us +he'd got a place where he could disappear from the district at a +moment's notice and yet be back in another moment if we rang the gong. I +fancy he'd got to tell her where it was,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> pretty quick; but I only found +out for myself by accident. Years afterward, he told me he'd got the +idea from Jean Ingelow's place in Italy somewhere."</p> + +<p>"It's in Florence," said Blanche, laughing. "I've been there and seen +it, and it's the exact same thing. But you mean Michelangelo, Sweep!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, do I?" he said serenely. "Well, I shall never forget how I found +out its existence."</p> + +<p>"No more shall I. You told me all about it at the time, as a terrific +secret, and I may tell you that I've kept it from that day to this!"</p> + +<p>"You would," he said simply. "But think of having the nerve to pull up +the governor's floor! It only shows what a boy will do. I wonder if the +hole's there still!"</p> + +<p>Now all the time the planetary <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>detective had been watching his +satellite engaged in an attempt to render the damage done to the +mahogany doors a little less conspicuous. Neither appeared to be taking +any further interest in the cigar cupboard, or paying the slightest +attention to Cazalet's reminiscences. But Mr. Drinkwater happened to +have heard every word, and in the last sentence there was one that +caused him to prick up his expert ears instinctively.</p> + +<p>"What's that about a hole?" said he, turning round.</p> + +<p>"I was reminding Miss Macnair how the place first came to be—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes. But what about some hole in the floor?"</p> + +<p>"I made one myself with one of those knives that contain all sorts of +things, including a saw. It was one Saturday afternoon in the summer +holidays. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> came in here from the garden as my father went out by that +door into the hall, leaving one of these mahogany doors open by mistake. +It was the chance of my life; in I slipped to have a look. He came back +for something, saw the very door you've broken standing ajar, and shut +it without looking in. So there I was in a nice old trap! I simply +daren't call out and give myself away. There was a bit of loose oilcloth +on the floor—"</p> + +<p>"There is still," said the satellite, pausing in his task.</p> + +<p>"I moved the oilcloth, in the end; howked up one end of the board +(luckily they weren't groove and tongue), sawed through the next one to +it, had it up, too, and got through into the foundations, leaving +everything much as I had found it. The place is so small that the +oilcloth was obliged to fall in place if it fell <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>anywhere. But I had +plenty of time, because my people had gone in to dinner."</p> + +<p>"You ought to have been a burglar, sir," said Mr. Drinkwater ironically. +"So you covered up a sin with a crime, like half the gentlemen who go +through my hands for the first and last time! But how did you get out of the foundations?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that was as easy as pie; I'd often explored them. Do you remember +the row I got into, Blanche, for taking you with me once and simply +ruining your frock?"</p> + +<p>"I remember the frock!" said Blanche.</p> + +<p>It was her last contribution to the conversation; immediate developments +not only put an end to the further exchange of ancient memories, but +rendered it presently impossible by removing Cazalet from the scene with +the two detectives. Almost without warning, as in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>harlequinade of +which they might have been the rascal heroes, all three disappeared down +the makeshift trap-door cut by one of them as a schoolboy in his +father's floor; and Blanche found herself in sole possession of the +stage, a very envious Columbine, indeed!</p> + +<p>She hardly even knew how it happened. The satellite must have popped +back into the Michelangelo cigar cupboard. He might have called to Mr. +Drinkwater, but the only summons that Blanche could remember hearing was +almost a sharp one from Drinkwater to Cazalet. A lot of whispering +followed in the little place; it was so small that she never saw the +hole until it had engulfed two of the trio; the third explorer, Mr. +Drinkwater himself, had very courteously turned her out of the library +before following the others. And he had said so very little beforehand +for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> her to hear, and so quickly prevented Cazalet from saying anything +at all, that she simply could not think what any of them were doing under the floor.</p> + +<p>Under her very feet she heard them moving as she waited a bit in the +hall; then she left the house by way of the servants' quarters, of +course without holding any communication with those mutineers, and only +indignant that Mr. Drinkwater should have requested her not to do so.</p> + +<p>It was a long half-hour that followed for Blanche Macnair, but she +passed it characteristically, and not in morbid probings of the many +changes that had come over one young man in less than the course of a +summer's day. He was excited at getting back, he had stumbled into a +still more exciting situation, so no wonder he was one thing one moment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +and another the next. That was all that Blanche allowed herself to think +of Sweep Cazalet—just then.</p> + +<p>She turned her wholesome mind to dogs, which in some ways she knew +better and trusted further than men. She had, of course, a dog of her +own, but it happened to be on a visit to the doctor or no doubt it would +have been in the way all the afternoon. But there was a dog at Uplands, +and as yet she had seen nothing of him; he lived in a large kennel in +the yard, for he was a large dog and rather friendless. But Blanche knew +him by sight, and had felt always sorry for him.</p> + +<p>The large kennel was just outside the back door, which was at the top of +the cellar steps and at the bottom of two or three leading into the +scullery; but Blanche, of course, went round by the garden. She found +the poor old dog quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> disconsolate in a more canine kennel in a corner +of the one that was really worthy of the more formidable carnivora. +There was every sign of his being treated as the dangerous dog that +Blanche, indeed, had heard he was; the outer bars were further protected +by wire netting, which stretched like a canopy over the whole cage; but +Blanche let herself in with as little hesitation as she proceeded to +beard the poor brute in his inner lair. And he never even barked at her; +he just lay whimpering with his tearful nose between his two front paws, +as though his dead master had not left him to the servants all his life.</p> + +<p>Blanche coaxed and petted him until she almost wept herself; then +suddenly and without warning the dog showed his worst side. Out he +leaped from wooden sanctuary, almost knocking her down, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> barking +horribly, but not at Blanche. She followed his infuriated eyes; and the +back doorway framed a dusty and grimy figure, just climbing into full +length on the cellar stairs, which Blanche had some difficulty in +identifying with that of Cazalet.</p> + +<p>"Well, you really <i>are</i> a Sweep!" she cried when she had slipped out +just in time, and the now savage dog was still butting and clawing at +his bars. "How did you come out, and where are the enemy?"</p> + +<p>"The old way," he answered. "I left them down there."</p> + +<p>"And what did you find?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you later. I can't hear my voice for that infernal dog."</p> + +<p>The dreadful barking followed them out of the yard, and round to the +right, past the tradesmen's door, to the verge of the drive. Here they +met an elderly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> man in a tremendous hurry—an unstable dotard who +instantly abandoned whatever purpose he had formed, and came to anchor +in front of them with rheumy eyes and twitching wrinkles.</p> + +<p>"Why, if that isn't Miss Blanche!" he quavered. "Do you hear our Roy, +miss? I ha'n't heard that go on like that since the night that happened!"</p> + +<p>Then Cazalet introduced himself to the old gardener whom he had known +all his life; and by rights the man should have wept outright, or else +emitted a rustic epigram laden with wise humor. But old Savage hailed +from silly Suffolk, and all his life he had belied his surname, but +never the alliterative libel on his native country. He took the +wanderer's return very much as a matter of course, very much as though +he had never been away at all, and was demonstrative only in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +further use of the East Anglian pronoun.</p> + +<p>"That's a long time since we fared to see you, Mus' Walter," said he; +"that's a right long time! And now here's a nice kettle of fish for you +to find! But I seen the man, Mus' Walter, and we'll bring that home to +him, never you fear!"</p> + +<p>"Are you sure that you saw him?" asked Blanche, already under Cazalet's +influence on this point.</p> + +<p>Savage looked cautiously toward the house before replying; then he +lowered his voice dramatically. "Sure, Miss Blanche. Why, I see him that +night as plain as I fare to see Mus' Walter now!"</p> + +<p>"I should have thought it was too dark to see anybody properly," said +Blanche, and Cazalet nodded vigorously to himself.</p> + +<p>"Dark, Miss Blanche? Why, that was broad daylight, and if that wasn't +there were the lodge lights on to see him by!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> His stage voice fell a +sepulchral semitone. "But I see him again at the station this very +afternoon, I did! I promised not to talk about that—you'll keep that a +secret if I tell 'e somethin'?—but I picked him out of half a dozen at +the first time of askin'!"</p> + +<p>Savage said this with a pleased and vacuous grin, looking Cazalet full +in the face; his rheumy eyes were red as the sunset they faced; and +Cazalet drew a deep breath as Blanche and he turned back toward the river.</p> + +<p>"First time of prompting, I expect!" he whispered. "But there's hope if +Savage is their strongest witness."</p> + +<p>"Only listen to that dog," said Blanche, as they passed the yard.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>VIII</span> <span class="smaller">FINGER-PRINTS</span></h2> + +<p>Hilton Toye was the kind of American who knew London as well as most +Londoners, and some other capitals a good deal better than their +respective citizens of corresponding intelligence. His travels were +mysteriously but enviably interwoven with business; he had an air of +enjoying himself, and at the same time making money to pay for his +enjoyment, wherever he went. His hotel days were much the same all over +Europe: many appointments, but abundant leisure. As, however, he never +spoke about his own affairs unless they were also those of the +listener—and not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>always then—half his acquaintances had no idea how +he made his money, and the other half wondered how he spent his time. Of +his mere interests, which were many, Toye made no such secret; but it +was quite impossible to deduce a main industry from the by-products of +his level-headed versatility.</p> + +<p>Criminology, for example, was an obvious by-product; it was no morbid +taste in Hilton Toye, but a scientific hobby that appealed to his mental +subtlety. And subtle he was, yet with strange simplicities; grave and +dignified, yet addicted to the expressive phraseology of his less +enlightened countrymen; naturally sincere, and yet always capable of +some ingenuous duplicity.</p> + +<p>The appeal of a Blanche Macnair to such a soul needs no analysis. She +had struck through all complexities to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> core, such as it was or as +she might make it. As yet she could only admire the character the man +had shown, though it had upset her none the less. At Engelberg he had +proposed to her "inside of two weeks," as he had admitted without +compunction at the time. It had taken him, he said, about two minutes to +make up his mind; but the following summer he had laid more deliberate +siege, in accordance with some old idea that she had let fall to soften +her first refusal. The result had been the same, only more explicit on +both sides. She had denied him the least particle of hope, and he had +warned her that she had not heard the last of him by any means, and +never would till she married another man. This had incensed her at the +time, but a great deal less on subsequent reflection; and such was the +position between that pair when Toye and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> Cazalet landed in England from +the same steamer.</p> + +<p>On this second day ashore, as Cazalet sat over a late breakfast in +Jermyn Street, Toye sent in his card and was permitted to follow it, +rather to his surprise. He found his man frankly divided between +kidneys-and-bacon and the morning paper, but in a hearty mood, +indicative of amends for his great heat in yesterday's argument. A +plainer indication was the downright yet sunny manner in which Cazalet +at once returned to the contentious topic.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear Toye, what do you think of it now?"</p> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/ill02.jpg" width='479' height='700' alt="What do you think of it now" /></div> + +<p class="bold">"What do you think of it now?"</p> + +<p>"I was going to ask you what you thought, but I guess I can see from your face."</p> + +<p>"I think the police are rotters for not setting him free last night!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p><p>"Scruton?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Of course, the case'll break down when it comes on next week, but +they oughtn't to wait for that. They've no right to detain a man in +custody when the bottom's out of their case already."</p> + +<p>"But—but the papers claim they've found the very things they were +searching for." Toye looked nonplused, as well he might, by an +apparently perverse jubilation over such intelligence.</p> + +<p>"They haven't found the missing cap!" crowed Cazalet. "What they have +found is Craven's watch and keys, and the silver-mounted truncheon that +killed him. But they found them in a place where they couldn't possibly +have been put by the man identified as Scruton!"</p> + +<p>"Say, where was that?" asked Toye with great interest. "My paper only +says the things were found, not where."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p><p>"No more does mine, but I can tell you, because I helped to find 'em."</p> + +<p>"You don't say!"</p> + +<p>"You'll never grasp where," continued Cazalet. "In the foundations under the house!"</p> + +<p>Details followed in all fulness; the listener might have had a part in +the Uplands act of yesterday's drama, might have played in the library +scene with his adored Miss Blanche, so vividly was every minute of that +crowded hour brought home to him. He also had seen the original +writing-cupboard in Michelangelo's old Florentine house; he remembered +it perfectly, and said that he could see the replica, with its shelf of +a desk stacked with cigars, and the hole in its floor. He was not so +sure that he had any very definite conception of the foundations of an English house.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p><p>"Ours were like ever so many little tiny rooms," said Cazalet, "where I +couldn't stand nearly upright even as a small boy without giving my head +a crack against the ground floors. They led into one another by a lot of +little manholes—tight fits even for a boy, but nearly fatal to the boss +policeman yesterday! I used to get in through one with a door, at the +back of a slab in the cellars where they used to keep empty bottles; +they keep 'em there still, because that's how I led my party out last night."</p> + +<p>Cazalet's little gift of description was not ordered by an equal sense +of selection. Hilton Toye, edging in his word in a pause for a gulp of +coffee, said he guessed he visualized—but just where had those missing +things been found?</p> + +<p>"Three or four compartments from the first one under the library," said Cazalet.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p><p>"Did you find them?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I kicked against the truncheon, but Drinkwater dug it up. The +watch and keys were with it."</p> + +<p>"Say, were they buried?"</p> + +<p>"Only in the loose rubble and brick-dusty stuff that you get in foundations."</p> + +<p>"Say, that's bad! That murderer must have known something, or else it's +a bully fluke in his favor."</p> + +<p>"I don't follow you, Toye."</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking of finger-prints. If he'd just've laid those things right +down, he'd have left the print of his hand as large as life for Scotland Yard."</p> + +<p>"The devil he would!" exclaimed Cazalet. "I wish you'd explain," he +added; "remember I'm a wild man from the woods, and only know of these +things by the vaguest kind of hearsay and stray paragraphs in the +papers. I never knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> you could leave your mark so easily as all that."</p> + +<p>Toye took the breakfast menu and placed it face downward on the +tablecloth. "Lay your hand on that, palm down," he said, "and don't move +it for a minute."</p> + +<p>Cazalet looked at him a moment before complying; then his fine, shapely, +sunburnt hand lay still as plaster under their eyes until Toye told him +he might take it up. Of course there was no mark whatever, and Cazalet laughed.</p> + +<p>"You should have caught me when I came up from those foundations, not +fresh from my tub!" said he.</p> + +<p>"You wait," replied Hilton Toye, taking the menu gingerly by the edge, +and putting it out of harm's way in the empty toast-rack. "You can't see +anything now, but if you come round to the Savoy I'll show you something."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p><p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Your prints, sir! I don't say I'm Scotland Yard at the game, but I can +do it well enough to show you how it's done. You haven't left your mark +upon the paper, but I guess you've left the sweat of your hand; if I +snow a little French chalk over it, the chalk'll stick where your hand +did, and blow off easily everywhere else. The rest's as simple as all +big things. It's hanged a few folks already, but I judge it doesn't have +much chance with things that have lain buried in brick-dust. Say, come +round to lunch and I'll have your prints ready for you. I'd like awfully +to show you how it's done. It would really be a great pleasure."</p> + +<p>Cazalet excused himself with decision. He had a full morning in front of +him. He was going to see Miss Macnair's brother, son of the late head of +his father's old firm of solicitors, and now one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> of the partners, to +get them either to take up Scruton's case themselves, or else to +recommend a firm perhaps more accustomed to criminal practise. Cazalet +was always apt to be elaborate in the first person singular, either in +the past or in the future tense; but he was more so than usual in +explaining his considered intentions in this matter that lay so very near his heart.</p> + +<p>"Going to see Scruton, too?" said Toye.</p> + +<p>"Not necessarily," was the short reply. But it also was elaborated by +Cazalet on a moment's consideration. The fact was that he wanted first +to know if it were not possible, by the intervention of a really +influential lawyer, to obtain the prisoner's immediate release, at any +rate on bail. If impossible, he might hesitate to force himself on +Scruton in the prison, but he would see.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p><p>"It's a perfect scandal that he should be there at all," said Cazalet, +as he rose first and ushered Toye out into the lounge. "Only think: our +old gardener saw him run out of the drive at half past seven, when the +gong went, when the real murderer must have been shivering in the +Michelangelo cupboard, wondering how the devil he was ever going to get out again."</p> + +<p>"Then you think old man Craven—begging his poor pardon—was getting out +some cigars when the man, whoever he was, came in and knocked him on the head?"</p> + +<p>Cazalet nodded vigorously. "That's the likeliest thing of all!" he +cried. "Then the gong went—there may even have come a knock at the +door—and there was that cupboard standing open at his elbow."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p><p>"With a hole in the floor that might have been made for him?"</p> + +<p>"As it happens, yes; he'd search every inch like a rat in a trap, you +see; and there it was as I'd left it twenty years before."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's a wonderful yarn!" exclaimed Hilton Toye, and he lighted the +cigar that Cazalet had given him.</p> + +<p>"I think it may be thought one if the police ever own how they made +their find," agreed Cazalet, laughing and looking at his watch. Toye had +never heard him laugh so often. "By the way, Drinkwater doesn't want any +of all this to come out until he's dragged his man before the beak again."</p> + +<p>"Which you mean to prevent?"</p> + +<p>"If only I can! I more or less promised not to talk, however, and I'm +sure you won't. You knew so much already,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> you may just as well know the +rest this week as well as next, if you don't mind keeping it to yourself."</p> + +<p>Nobody could have minded this particular embargo less than Hilton Toye; +and in nothing was he less like Cazalet, who even now had the +half-regretful and self-excusing air of the impulsive person who has +talked too freely and discovered it too late. But he had been perfectly +delightful to Hilton Toye, almost too appreciative, if anything, and now +very anxious to give him a lift in his taxi. Toye, however, had shopping +to do in the very street that they were in, and he saw Cazalet off with +a smile that was as yet merely puzzled, and not unfriendly until he had +time to recall Miss Blanche's part in the strange affair of the previous afternoon.</p> + +<p>Say, weren't they rather intimate,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> those two, even if they had known +each other all their lives? He had it from Blanche (with her second +refusal) that she was not, and never had been, engaged. And a fellow who +only wrote to her once in a year—still, they must have been darned +intimate, and this funny affair would bring them together again quicker than anything.</p> + +<p>Say, what a funny affair it was when you came to think of it! Funny all +through, it now struck Toye; beginning on board ship with that dream of +Cazalet's about the murdered man, leading to all that talk of the old +grievance against him, and culminating in his actually finding the +implements of the crime in his inspired efforts to save the man of whose +innocence he was so positive. Say, if that Cazalet had not been on his +way home from Australia at the time!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p><p>Like many deliberate speakers, Toye thought like lightning, and had +reached this point before he was a hundred yards from the hotel; then he +thought of something else, and retraced his steps. He retraced them even +to the table at which he had sat with Cazalet not very many minutes ago; +the waiter was only now beginning to clear away.</p> + +<p>"Say, waiter, what have you done with the menu that was in that +toast-rack? There was something on it that we rather wanted to keep."</p> + +<p>"I thought there was, sir," said the English waiter at that admirable +hotel. Toye, however, prepared to talk to him like an American uncle of Dutch extraction.</p> + +<p>"You thought that, and you took it away?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all, sir. I 'appened to observe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> the other gentleman put the +menu in his pocket, behind your back as you were getting up, because I +passed a remark about it to the head waiter at the time!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>IX</span> <span class="smaller">FAIR WARNING</span></h2> + +<p>It was much more than a map of the metropolis that Toye carried in his +able head. He knew the right places for the right things, from his +tailor's at one end of Jermyn Street to his hatter's at the other, and +from the man for collars and dress shirts, in another of St. James', to +the only man for soft shirts, on Piccadilly. Hilton Toye visited them +all in turn this fine September morning, and found the select team +agreeably disengaged, readier than ever to suit him. Then he gazed +critically at his boots. He was not so dead sure that he had struck the +only man for boots. There had been a young fellow aboard the <i>Kaiser +Fritz</i>, quite a little bit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> of a military blood, who had come ashore in +a pair of cloth tops that had rather unsettled Mr. Toye's mind just on that one point.</p> + +<p>He thought of this young fellow when he was through with the soft-shirt +man on Piccadilly. They had diced for a drink or two in the +smoking-room, and Captain Aylmer had said he would like to have Toye see +his club any time he was passing and cared to look in for lunch. He had +said so as though he would like it a great deal, and suddenly Toye had a +mind to take him at his word right now. The idea began with those boots +with cloth tops, but that was not all there was to it; there was +something else that had been at the back of Toye's mind all morning, and +now took charge in front.</p> + +<p>Aylmer had talked some about a job in the war office that enabled him to +lunch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> daily at the Rag; but what his job had been aboard a German +steamer Toye did not know and was not the man to inquire. It was no +business of his, anyway. Reference to a card, traded for his own in +Southampton Water, and duly filed in his cigarette-case, reminded him of +the Rag's proper style and title. And there he was eventually +entertained to a sound, workmanlike, rather expeditious meal.</p> + +<p>"Say, did you see the cemetery at Genoa?" suddenly inquired the visitor +on their way back through the hall. A martial bust had been admired +extravagantly before the question.</p> + +<p>"Never want to see it again, or Genoa either," said Captain Aylmer. "The +smoking-room's this way."</p> + +<p>"I judge you didn't care a lot about the city?" pursued Toye as they +found a corner.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p><p>"Genoa? Oh, I liked it all right, but you get fed up in a couple of +days neither ashore nor afloat. It's a bit amphibious. Of course you can +go to a hotel, if you like; but not if you're only a poor British soldier."</p> + +<p>"Did you say you were there two days?" Toye was cutting his cigar as +though it were a corn.</p> + +<p>"Two whole days, and we'd had a night in the Bay of Naples just before."</p> + +<p>"Is that so? I only came aboard at Genoa. I guess I was wise," added +Toye, as though he was thinking of something else. There was no sort of +feeling in his voice, but he was sucking his left thumb.</p> + +<p>"I say, you've cut yourself!"</p> + +<p>"I guess it's nothing. Knife too sharp; please don't worry, Captain +Aylmer. I was going to say I only got on at Genoa, and they couldn't +give me a room to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>myself. I had to go in with Cazalet; that's how I saw +so much of him."</p> + +<p>It was Toye's third separate and independent attempt to introduce the +name and fame of Cazalet as a natural topic of conversation. Twice his +host had listened with adamantine politeness; this time he was enjoying +quite the second-best liqueur brandy to be had at the Rag; and he leaned +back in his chair.</p> + +<p>"You were rather impressed with him, weren't you?" said Captain Aylmer. +"Well, frankly, I wasn't, but it may have been my fault. It does rather +warp one's judgment to be shot out to Aden on a potty job at this time o' year."</p> + +<p>So that was where he had been? Yes, and by Jove he had to see a man +about it all at three o'clock.</p> + +<p>"One of the nuts," explained Captain Aylmer, keeping his chair with fine +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>restraint. Toye rose with finer alacrity. "I hope you won't think me +rude," said the captain, "but I'm afraid I really mustn't keep him waiting."</p> + +<p>Toye said the proper things all the way to the hat-stand, and there took +frontal measures as a last resort. "I was only going to ask you one +thing about Mr. Cazalet," he said, "and I guess I've a reason for +asking, though there's no time to state it now. What did you think of +him, Captain Aylmer, on the whole?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, there you have me. 'On the whole' is just the difficulty," said +Aylmer, answering the straight question readily enough. "I thought he +was a very good chap as far as Naples, but after Genoa he was another +being. I've sometimes wondered what happened in his three or four days ashore."</p> + +<p>"Three or <i>four</i>, did you say?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p><p>And at the last moment Toye would have played Wedding Guest to Aylmer's +Ancient Mariner.</p> + +<p>"Yes; you see, he knew these German boats waste a couple of days at +Genoa, so he landed at Naples and did his Italy overland. Rather a good +idea, I thought, especially as he said he had friends in Rome; but we +never heard of 'em beforehand, and I should have let the whole thing +strike me a bit sooner if I'd been Cazalet. Soon enough to take a +hand-bag and a tooth-brush, eh? And I don't think I should have run it +quite so fine at Genoa, either. But there are rum birds in this world, +and always will be!"</p> + +<p>Toye felt one himself as he picked his way through St. James' Square. If +it had not been just after lunch, he would have gone straight and had a +cocktail, for of course he knew the only place for <i>them</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> What he did +was to slue round out of the square, and to obtain for the asking, at +another old haunt, on Cockspur Street, the latest little time-table of +continental trains. This he carried, not on foot but in a taxi, to the +Savoy Hotel, where it kept him busy in his own room for the best part of +another hour. But by that time Hilton Toye looked more than an hour +older than on sitting down at his writing-table with pencil, paper and +the little book of trains; he looked horrified, he looked distressed, +and yet he looked crafty, determined and immensely alive. He proceeded, +however, to take some of the life out of himself, and to add still more +to his apparent age, by repairing for more inward light and leading to a Turkish bath.</p> + +<p>Now the only Turkish bath, according to Hilton Toye's somewhat +exclusive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> code, was not even a hundred yards from Cazalet's hotel; and +there the visitor of the morning again presented himself before the +afternoon; now merely a little worn, as a man will look after losing a +stone an hour on a warm afternoon, and a bit blue again about the chin, +which of course looked a little deeper and stronger on that account.</p> + +<p>Cazalet was not in; his friend would wait, and in fact waited over an +hour in the little lounge. An evening paper was offered to him; he took +it listlessly, scarcely looked at it at first, then tore it in his +anxiety to find something he had quite forgotten—from the newspaper +end. But he was waiting as stoically as before when Cazalet arrived in tremendous spirits.</p> + +<p>"Stop and dine!" he cried out at once.</p> + +<p>"Sorry I can't; got to go and see somebody," said Hilton Toye.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p><p>"Then you must have a drink."</p> + +<p>"No, I thank you," said Toye, with the decisive courtesy of a total abstainer.</p> + +<p>"You look as if you wanted one; you don't look a bit fit," said Cazalet most kindly.</p> + +<p>"Nor am I, sir!" exclaimed Toye. "I guess London's no place for me in +the fall. Just as well, too, I judge, since I've got to light out again straight away."</p> + +<p>"You haven't!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, this very night. That's the worst of a business that takes +you to all the capitals of Europe in turn. It takes you so long to flit +around that you never know when you've got to start in again."</p> + +<p>"Which capital is it this time?" said Cazalet. His exuberant geniality +had been dashed very visibly for the moment. But already his high +spirits were reasserting themselves; indeed, a cynic with an ear might +have caught the note of sudden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> consolation in the question that Cazalet +asked so briskly.</p> + +<p>"Got to go down to Rome," said Toye, watching the effect of his words.</p> + +<p>"But you've just come back from there!" Cazalet looked no worse than puzzled.</p> + +<p>"No, sir, I missed Rome out; that was my mistake, and here's this +situation been developing behind my back."</p> + +<p>"What situation?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, why, it wouldn't interest you! But I've got to go down to Rome, +whether I like it or not, and I don't like it any, because I don't have +any friends there. And that's what I'm doing right here. I was wondering +if you'd do something for me, Cazalet?"</p> + +<p>"If I can," said Cazalet, "with pleasure." But his smiles were gone.</p> + +<p>"I was wondering if you'd give me an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> introduction to those friends of +yours in Rome!"</p> + +<p>There was a little pause, and Cazalet's tongue just showed between his +lips, moistening them. It was at that moment the only touch of color in his face.</p> + +<p>"<i>Did</i> I tell you I'd any friends there?"</p> + +<p>The sound of his voice was perhaps less hoarse than puzzled. Toye made +himself chuckle as he sat looking up out of somber eyes.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you didn't," said he, "I guess I must have dreamed it!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>X</span> <span class="smaller">THE WEEK OF THEIR LIVES</span></h2> + +<p>"Toye's gone back to Italy," said Cazalet. "He says he may be away only +a week. Let's make it the week of our lives!"</p> + +<p>The scene was the little room it pleased Blanche to call her parlor, and +the time a preposterously early hour of the following forenoon. Cazalet +might have 'planed down from the skies into her sunny snuggery, though +his brand-new Burberry rather suggested another extravagant taxicab. But +Blanche saw only his worn excited face; and her own was not at its best +in her sheer amazement.</p> + +<p>If she had heard the last two sentences,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> to understand them at the time +she would have felt bound to take them up first, and to ask how on earth +Mr. Toye could affect her plans or pleasures. But such was the effect of +the preceding statement that all the rest was several moments on the way +to her comprehension, where it arrived, indeed, more incomprehensible +than ever, but not worth making a fuss about then.</p> + +<p>"Italy!" she had ejaculated meanwhile. "<i>When</i> did he go?"</p> + +<p>"Nine o'clock last night."</p> + +<p>"But"—she checked herself—"I simply can't understand it, that's all!"</p> + +<p>"Why? Have you seen him since the other afternoon?"</p> + +<p>His manner might have explained those other two remarks, now bothering +her when it was too late to notice them; on the other hand, she was by +no means sure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> that it did. He might simply dislike Toye, and that again +might explain his extraordinary heat over the argument at Littleford. +Blanche began to feel the air somewhat heavily charged with +explanations, either demanded or desired; they were things she hated, +and she determined not to add to them if she could help it.</p> + +<p>"I haven't set eyes on him again," she said. "But he's been seen here—in a taxi."</p> + +<p>"Who saw him?"</p> + +<p>"Martha—if she's not mistaken."</p> + +<p>This was a little disingenuous, as will appear; but that impetuous Sweep +was in a merciful hurry to know something else.</p> + +<p>"When was this, Blanche?"</p> + +<p>"Just about dark—say seven or so. She owns it was about dark," said +Blanche, though she felt ashamed of herself.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's just possible. He left me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> about six; said he had to see +some one, too, now I think of it. But I'd give a bit to know what he was +doing, messing about down here at the last moment!"</p> + +<p>Blanche liked this as little as anything that Cazalet had said yet, and +he had said nothing that she did like this morning. But there were +allowances to be made for him, she knew. And yet to strengthen her +knowledge, or rather to let him confirm it for her, either by word or by +his silence, she stated a certain case for him aloud.</p> + +<p>"Poor old Sweep!" she laughed. "It's a shame that you should have come +home to be worried like this."</p> + +<p>"I am worried," he said simply.</p> + +<p>"I think it's just splendid, all you're doing for that poor man, but +especially the way you're doing it."</p> + +<p>"I wish to God you wouldn't say that, Blanche!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p><p>He paid her the compliment of speaking exactly as he would have spoken +to a man; or rather, she happened to be the woman to take it as a compliment.</p> + +<p>"But I do say it, Sweep! I've heard all about it from Charlie. He rang +me up last night."</p> + +<p>"You're on the telephone, are you?"</p> + +<p>"Everybody is in these days. Where have you lived? Oh, I forgot!" And +she laughed. Anything to lift this duet of theirs out of the minor key!</p> + +<p>"But what does old Charlie really think of the case? That's more to the +point," said Cazalet uneasily.</p> + +<p>"Well, he seemed to fear there was no chance of bail before the +adjourned hearing. But I rather gathered he was not going to be in it himself?"</p> + +<p>"No. We decided on one of those sportsmen who love rushing in where a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> +family lawyer like Charlie owns to looking down his nose. I've seen the +chap, and primed him up about old Savage, and our find in the +foundations. He says he'll make an example of Drinkwater, and Charlie +says they call him the Bobby's Bugbear!"</p> + +<p>"But surely he'll have to tell his client who's behind him?"</p> + +<p>"No. He's just the type who would have rushed in, anyhow. And it'll be +time enough to put Scruton under obligations when I've got him off!"</p> + +<p>Blanche looked at the troubled eyes avoiding hers, and thought that she +had never heard of a fine thing being done so finely. This very +shamefacedness appealed to her intensely, and yet last night Charlie had +said that old Sweep was in such tremendous spirits about it all! Why was +he so down this morning?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p><p>She only knew she could have taken his hand, but for a very good reason +why she could not. She had even to guard against an equivocally +sympathetic voice or manner, as she asked, "How long did they remand him for?"</p> + +<p>"Eight days."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, you'll know the best or the worst to-day week!"</p> + +<p>"Yes!" he said eagerly, almost himself again. "But, whichever way it +goes, I'm afraid it means trouble for me, Blanche; some time or other +I'll tell you why; but that's why I want this to be the week of our lives."</p> + +<p>So he really meant what he had said before. The phrase had been no +careless misuse of words; but neither, after all, did it necessarily +apply to Mr. Toye. That was something. It made it easier for Blanche not +to ask questions.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p><p>Cazalet had gone out on the balcony; now he called to her; and there +was no taxi, but a smart open car, waiting in the road, its brasses +blazing in the sun, an immaculate chauffeur at the wheel.</p> + +<p>"Whose is that, Sweep?"</p> + +<p>"Mine, for the week I'm talking about! I mean ours, if you'd only buck +up and get ready to come out! A week doesn't last forever, you know!"</p> + +<p>Blanche ran off to Martha, who fussed and hindered her with the best +intentions. It would have been difficult to say which was the more +excited of the two. But the old nurse would waste time in perfectly +fatuous reminiscences of the very earliest expeditions in which Mr. +Cazalet had lead and Blanche had followed, and what a bonny pair they +had made even then, etc. Severely snubbed on that subject, she took to +peering at her mistress, once her bairn,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> with furtive eagerness and +impatience; for Blanche, on her side, looked as though she had something +on her mind, and, indeed, had made one or two attempts to get it off. +She had to force it even in the end.</p> + +<p>"There's just one thing I want to say before I go, Martha."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dearie, yes?"</p> + +<p>"You know when Mr. Toye called yesterday, and I was out?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Toye; yes, I remember, Miss Blanche."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't want you to say that he came in and waited half an hour +in vain; in fact, not that he came in at all, or that you're even sure +you saw him, unless, of course, you're asked."</p> + +<p>"Who should ask me, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know, but there seems to be a little bad blood between +Mr. Toye and Mr. Cazalet."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p><p>Martha looked for a moment as though she were about to weep, and then +for another moment as though she would die of laughing. But a third +moment she celebrated by making an utter old fool of herself, as she +would have been told to her face by anybody but Blanche, whose yellow +hair was being disarranged by the very hands that had helped to imprison +it under that motor-hat and veil.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Blanchie, is that all you have to tell me?" said Martha.</p> + +<p>And then the week of their lives began.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>XI</span> <span class="smaller">IN COUNTRY AND IN TOWN</span></h2> + +<p>The weather was true to them, and this was a larger matter than it might +have been. They were not making love. They were "not out for that," as +Blanche herself actually told Martha, with annihilating scorn, when the +old dear looked both knowing and longing-to-know at the end of the first +day's run. They were out to enjoy themselves, and that seemed shocking +to Martha "unless something was coming of it." She had just sense enough +to keep her conditional clause to herself.</p> + +<p>Yet if they were only out to enjoy themselves, in the way Miss Blanche<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> +vowed and declared (more shame for her), they certainly had done wonders +for a start. Martha could hardly credit all they said they had done, and +as an embittered pedestrian there was nothing that she would "put past" +one of those nasty motors. It said very little for Mr. Cazalet, by the +way, in Martha's private opinion, that he should take her Miss Blanche +out in a car at all; if he had turned out as well as she had hoped, and +"meant anything," a nice boat on the river would have been better for +them both than all that tearing through the air in a cloud of smoky +dust; it would also have been much less expensive, and far more "the thing".</p> + +<p>But, there, to see and hear the child after the first day! She looked so +bonny that for a time Martha really believed that Mr. Cazalet had +"spoken," and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>allowed herself to admire him also as he drove off later +with his wicked lamps alight. But Blanche would only go on and on about +her day, the glories of the Ripley Road and the grandeur of Hindhead. +She had brought back heaps of heather and bunches of leaves just +beginning to turn; they were all over the little house before Cazalet +had been gone ten minutes. But Blanche hadn't forgotten her poor old +Martha; she was not one to forget people, especially when she loved and +yet had to snub them. Martha's portion was picture post-cards of the +Gibbet and other landmarks of the day.</p> + +<p>"And if you're good," said Blanche, "you shall have some every day, and +an album to keep them in forever and ever. And won't that be nice when +it's all over, and Mr. Cazalet's gone back to Australia?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p><p>Crueller anticlimax was never planned, but Martha's face had brought it +on her; and now it remained to make her see for herself what an +incomparably good time they were having so far.</p> + +<p>"It was a simply splendid lunch at the Beacon, and <i>such</i> a tea at +Byfleet, coming back another way," explained Blanche, who was +notoriously indifferent about her food, but also as a rule much hungrier +than she seemed to-night. "It must be that tea, my dear. It was <i>too</i> +much. To-morrow I'm to take the <i>Sirram</i>, and I want Walter to see if he +can't get a billy and show me how they make tea in the bush; but he says +it simply couldn't be done without methylated."</p> + +<p>The next day they went over the Hog's Back, and the next day right +through London into Hertfordshire. This was a tremendous experience. The +car was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> good one from a good firm, and the chauffeur drove like an +angel through the traffic, so that the teeming city opened before them +from end to end. Then the Hertfordshire hedges and meadows and timber +were the very things after the Hog's Back and Hindhead; not so +wonderful, of course, but more like old England and less like the bush; +and before the day was out they had seen, through dodging London on the +way back, the Harrow boys like a lot of young butlers who had changed +hats with the maids, and Eton boys as closely resembling a convocation of slack curates.</p> + +<p>Then there was their Buckinghamshire day—Chalfont St. Giles and +Hughenden—and almost detached experiences such as the churchyard at +Stoke Poges, where Cazalet repeated astounding chunks of its <i>Elegy</i>, +learned as long ago as his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>preparatory school-days, and the terrible +disillusion of Hounslow Heath and its murderous trams.</p> + +<p>Then there was the wood they found where gipsies had been camping, where +they resolved that moment to do the same, just exactly in every detail +as Cazalet had so often done it in the bush; so that flesh and flour +were fetched from the neighboring village, and he sat on his heels and +turned them into mutton and damper in about a minute; and after that a +real camp-fire till long after dark, and a shadowy chauffeur smoking his +pipe somewhere in the other shadows, and thinking them, of course, quite +mad. The critic on the hearth at home thought even worse of them than +that. But Blanche only told the truth when she declared that the whole +thing had been her idea; and she might have added, a bitter +disappointment to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> her, because Walter simply would not talk about the +bush itself, and never had since that first hour in the old empty +schoolroom at Littleford.</p> + +<p>(By the way, she had taken to calling him Walter to his face.)</p> + +<p>Of other conversation, however, there was not and never had been the +slightest dearth between them; but it was, perhaps, a sad case of +quantity. These were two outdoor souls, and the one with the interesting +life no longer spoke about it. Neither was a great reader, even of the +papers, though Blanche liked poetry as she liked going to church; but +each had the mind that could batten quite amiably on other people. So +there was a deal of talk about neighbors down the river, and some of it +was scandal, and all was gossip; and there was a great deal about what +Blanche called their stone-age days, but again far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> less about +themselves when young than there had been at Littleford, that first day. +And so much for their conversation, once for all; it was frankly that of +two very ordinary persons, placed in an extraordinary position to which +they had shut their eyes for a week.</p> + +<p>They must have had between them, however, some rudimentary sense of +construction; for their final fling, if not just the most inspiring, was +at least unlike all the rest. It was almost as new to Blanche, and now +much more so to Cazalet; it appealed as strongly to their common stock +of freshness and simplicity. Yet cause and effect were alike undeniably +lacking in distinction. It began with cartloads of new clothes from +Cazalet's old tailor, and it ended in a theater and the Carlton.</p> + +<p>Martha surpassed herself, of course; she had gone about for days (or +rather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> mornings and evenings) in an aggressive silence, her lips +provocatively pursed; but now the time had come for her to speak out, +and that she did. If Miss Blanche had no respect for herself, there were +those who had some for her, just as there were others who seemed to have +forgotten the meaning of the word. The euphemistic plural disappeared at +the first syllable from Blanche. It was nothing to Martha that she had +been offered a place in the car (beside that forward young man) more +days than one; well did Mr. Cazalet know her feelings about motors +before he made her the offer. But she was not saying anything about what +was past. <i>This</i> was the limit; an expression which only sullied +Martha's lips because Blanche had just applied it to her interference. +It was not behaving as a gentleman; it was enough to work unpleasant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> +miracles in her poor parents' graves; and though Martha herself would +die sooner than inform Mr. Charlie or the married sisters, other people +were beginning to talk, and when this came out she knew who would get the blame.</p> + +<p>So Blanche seemed rather flushed and very spirited at the short and +early dinner at Dieudonne's; but it was a fact that the motoring had +affected her skin, besides making her eyes look as though she had been +doing what she simply never did. It had also toned up the lower part of +Cazalet's face to match the rest; otherwise he was more like a +meerschaum pipe than ever, with the white frieze across his forehead +(but now nothing else) to stamp him from the wilds. And soon nobody was +laughing louder at Mr. Payne and Mr. Grossmith; nobody looked better +qualified for his gaiety stall, nobody less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> like a predestined figure +in impending melodrama.</p> + +<p>So also at the Carlton later; more champagne, of course, and the jokes +of the evening to replenish a dwindling store, and the people at the +other tables to give a fresh fillip to the game of gossip. Blanche +looked as well as any of them in a fresher way than most, and Cazalet a +noble creature in all his brand-new glory; and she winced with pride at +the huge tip she saw him give the waiter; for an old friend may be proud +of an old friend, surely! Then they got a good place for watching more +people in the lounge; and the fiddling conductor proved the best worth +watching of the lot, and was pronounced the very best performer that +Cazalet had ever heard in all his life. Many other items were praised in +the same <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>fervent formula, which Blanche confirmed about everything +except his brandy and cigar.</p> + +<p>Above all was it delightful to feel that their beloved car was waiting +for them outside, to whirl them out of all this racket just as late as +they liked; for quite early in the week (and this was a glaring +aggravation in Martha's eyes) Cazalet had taken lodgings for himself and +driver in those very Nell Gwynne Cottages where Hilton Toye had stayed before him.</p> + +<p>All the evening nothing had been better of its kind than this music at +the very end; and, of course, it was the kind for Blanche and Cazalet, +who for his part liked anything with a tune, but could never remember +one to save his life. Yet when they played an aged waltz, actually in +its second decade, just upon half past<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> twelve, even Cazalet cocked his +head and frowned, as though he had heard the thing before.</p> + +<p>"I seem to know that," he said. "I believe I've danced to it."</p> + +<p>"I have," said Blanche. "Often," she added suddenly; and then, "I +suppose you sometimes dance in the bush, Walter?"</p> + +<p>"Sometimes."</p> + +<p>"That's where it was, then."</p> + +<p>"I don't think so. You couldn't get that tremendous long note on a +piano. There it goes again—bars and bars of it! That's what I seem to remember."</p> + +<p>Blanche's face never changed. "Now, that's the end. They're beginning to +put the lights out, Walter. Don't you think we'd better go?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>XII</span> <span class="smaller">THE THOUSANDTH MAN</span></h2> + +<p>It had been new life to them, but now it was all over. It was the last +evening of their week, and they were spending it rather silently on +Blanche's balcony.</p> + +<p>"I make it at least three hundred," said Cazalet, and knocked out a pipe +that might have been a gag. "You see, we were very seldom under fifty!"</p> + +<p>"Speak for yourself, please! My longevity's a tender point," said +Blanche, who looked as though she had no business to have her hair up, +as she sat in a pale cross-fire between a lamp-post and her lighted room.</p> + +<p>Cazalet protested that he had only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> meant their mileage in the car; he +made himself extremely intelligible now, as he often would when she +rallied him in a serious voice. Evidently that was not the way to rouse +him up to-night, and she wanted to cheer him after all that he had done +for her. Better perhaps not to burke the matter that she knew was on his mind.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's been a heavenly time," she assured him just once more. "And +to-morrow it's pretty sure to come all right about Scruton, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes! To-morrow we shall probably have Toye back," he answered with grim inconsequence.</p> + +<p>"What has that to do with it, Walter?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing, of course."</p> + +<p>But still his tone was grim and heavy, with a schoolboy irony that he +would not explain but could not keep to himself. So Mr. Toye must be +turned out of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>conversation, though it was not Blanche who had +dragged him in. She wished people would stick to their point. She meant +to make people, just for once and for their own good; but it took time +to find so many fresh openings, and he only cutting up another pipeful +of that really rather objectionable bush tobacco.</p> + +<p>"There's one thing I've rather wanted to ask you," she began.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" said Cazalet.</p> + +<p>"You said the other day that it would mean worry for you in any +case—after to-morrow—whether the charge is dismissed or not!"</p> + +<p>His wicker chair creaked under him.</p> + +<p>"I don't see why it should," she persisted, "if the case falls through."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's where I come in," he had to say.</p> + +<p>"Surely you mean just the other way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> about? If they commit the man for +trial, then you do come in, I know. It's like your goodness."</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't say that! It hurts me!"</p> + +<p>"Then will you explain yourself? It's not fair to tell me so much, and +then to leave out just the bit that's making you miserable!"</p> + +<p>The trusty, sisterly, sensible voice, half bantering but altogether +kind, genuinely interested if the least bit inquisitive, too, would have +gone to a harder or more hardened heart than beat on Blanche's balcony +that night. Yet as Cazalet lighted his pipe he looked old enough to be her father.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you some time," he puffed.</p> + +<p>"It's only a case of two heads," said Blanche. "I know you're bothered, +and I should like to help, that's all."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p><p>"How do you know? I believe you're going to devote yourself to this +poor man—if you can get him off—I mean, when you do."</p> + +<p>"Well?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Surely I could help you there! Especially if he's ill," cried Blanche, +encouraged by his silence. "I'm not half a bad nurse, really!"</p> + +<p>"I'm certain you're not."</p> + +<p>"Does he <i>look</i> very ill?"</p> + +<p>She had been trying to avoid the direct question as far as possible, but +this one seemed so harmless. Yet it was received in a stony silence +unlike any that had gone before. It was as though Cazalet neither moved +nor breathed, whereas he had been all sighs and fidgets just before. His +pipe was out already—that was the one merit of bush tobacco, it +required constant attention—and he did not look like lighting it again.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p><p>Until to-night they had not mentioned Scruton since the motoring began. +That had been a tacit rule of the road, of wayside talk and indoor orgy. +But Blanche had always assumed that Cazalet had been to see him in the +prison; and now he told her that he never had.</p> + +<p>"I can't face him," he cried under his breath, "and that's the truth! +Let me get him out of this hole, and I'm his man forever; but until I +do, while there's a chance of failing, I simply can't face the fellow. +It isn't as if he'd asked to see me. Why should I force myself upon him?"</p> + +<p>"He hasn't asked to see you because he doesn't know what you're doing +for him!" Blanche leaned forward as eagerly as she was speaking, all her +repressed feelings coming to their own in her for just a moment. "He +doesn't know because I do believe you wouldn't have him told that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> you'd +arrived, lest he should suspect! You <i>are</i> a brick, Sweep, you really are!"</p> + +<p>He was too much of one to sit still under the name. He sprang up, +beating his hands. "Why shouldn't I be—to him—to a poor devil who's +been through all he's been through? Ten years! Just think of it; no, +it's unthinkable to you or me. And it all started in our office; we were +to blame for not keeping our eyes open; things couldn't have come to +such a pass if we'd done our part, my poor old father for one—I can't +help saying it—and I myself for another. Talk about contributory +negligence! We were negligent, as well as blind. We didn't know a +villain when we saw one, and we let him make another villain under our +noses; and the second one was the only one we could see in his true +colors, even then. Do you think we owe him nothing now? Don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> you think +<i>I</i> owe him something, as the only man left to pay?"</p> + +<p>But Blanche made no attempt to answer his passionate questions. He had +let himself go at last; it relieved her also in a way, for it was the +natural man back again on her balcony. But he had set Blanche off +thinking on other lines than he intended.</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking of what <i>he</i> must have felt he owed Mr. Craven and—and +Ethel!" she owned.</p> + +<p>"I don't bother my head over either of them," returned Cazalet harshly. +"He was never a white man in his lifetime, and she was every inch his +daughter. Scruton's the one I pity—because—because I've suffered so +much from that man myself."</p> + +<p>"But you don't think he did it!" Blanche was sharp enough to interrupt.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p><p>"No—no—but if he had!"</p> + +<p>"You'd still stand by him?"</p> + +<p>"I've told you so before. I meant to take him back to Australia with +me—I never told you that—but I meant to take him, and not a soul out +there to know who he was." He sighed aloud over the tragic stopper on that plan.</p> + +<p>"And would you still?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"If I could get him off."</p> + +<p>"Guilty or not guilty?"</p> + +<p>"Rather!"</p> + +<p>There was neither shame, pose, nor hesitation about that. Blanche went +through into the room without a word, but her eyes shone finely in the +lamplight. Then she returned with a book, and stood half in the balcony, +framed as in a panel, looking for a place.</p> + +<p>"You remind me of <i>The Thousandth Man</i>," she told him as she found it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p><p>"Who was he?"</p> + +<p>"He's every man who does a thousandth part of what you're doing!" said +Blanche with confidence. And then she read, rather shyly and not too +well:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"'One man in a thousand, Solomon says,</div> +<div class="i1">Will stick more close than a brother.</div> +<div>And it's worth while seeking him half your days</div> +<div class="i1">If you find him before the other.</div> +<div>Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend</div> +<div class="i1">On what the world sees in you,</div> +<div>But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend</div> +<div class="i1">With the whole round world agin you.'"</div> +</div></div> + +<p>"I should hope he would," said Cazalet, "if he's a man at all."</p> + +<p>"But this is the bit for you," said Blanche:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"'His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right,</div> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span><div class="i1">In season or out of season.</div> +<div>Stand up and back it in all men's sight—</div> +<div class="i1">With <i>that</i> for your only reason!</div> +<div>Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide</div> +<div class="i1">The shame or mocking or laughter,</div> +<div>But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side</div> +<div class="i1"><i>To the gallows-foot</i>—and after!'"</div> +</div></div> + +<p>The last italics were in Blanche's voice, and it trembled, but so did +Cazalet's as he cried out in his formula:</p> + +<p>"That's the finest thing I ever heard in all my life! But it's true, and +so it should be. <i>I</i> don't take any credit for it."</p> + +<p>"Then you're all the more the thousandth man!"</p> + +<p>He caught her suddenly by the shoulders. His rough hands trembled; his +jaw worked. "Look here, Blanchie! If <i>you</i> had a friend, wouldn't you do +the same?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, if I'd such a friend as all that," she faltered.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p><p>"You'd stand by his side 'to the gallows-foot'—if he was swine enough +to let you?"</p> + +<p>"I dare say I might."</p> + +<p>"However bad a thing it was—murder, if you like—and however much he +was mixed up in it—not like poor Scruton?"</p> + +<p>"I'd try to stick to him," she said simply.</p> + +<p>"Then you're the thousandth woman," said Cazalet. "God bless you, +Blanchie!"</p> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/ill03.jpg" width='467' height='700' alt="God bless you, Blanchie" /></div> + +<p class="bold">"God bless you, Blanchie!"</p> + +<p>He turned on his heel in the balcony, and a minute later found the room +behind him empty. He entered, stood thinking, and suddenly began looking +all over for the photograph of himself, with a beard, which he had seen +there a week before.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>XIII</span> <span class="smaller">QUID PRO QUO</span></h2> + +<p>It was his blessing that had done it; up to then she had controlled her +feelings in a fashion worthy of the title just bestowed upon her. If +only he had stopped at that, and kept his blessing to himself! It +sounded so very much more like a knell that Blanche had begun first to +laugh, and then to make such a fool of herself (as she herself +reiterated) that she was obliged to run away in the worst possible order.</p> + +<p>But that was not the end of those four superfluous words of final +benediction; before the night was out they had solved, to Blanche's +satisfaction, the hitherto impenetrable mystery of Cazalet's conduct.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p><p>He had done something in Australia, something that fixed a gulf between +him and her. Blanche did not mean something wrong, much less a crime, +least of all any sort of complicity in the great crime which had been +committed while he was on his way home. Obviously he could have had no +connection with that, until days afterward as the accused man's friend. +Yet he had on his conscience some act or other of which he was ashamed +to speak. It might even itself be shameful; that was what his whole +manner had suggested, but what Blanche was least ready and at the same +time least unwilling to believe. She felt she could forgive such an old +friend almost anything. But she believed the worst he had done was to +emulate his friend Mr. Potts, and to get engaged or perhaps actually +married to somebody in the bush.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p><p>There was no reason why he should not; there never had been any sort or +kind of understanding between herself and him; it was only as lifelong +friends that they had written to each other, and that only once a year. +Lifelong friendships are traditionally fatal to romance. Blanche could +remember only one occasion on which their friendship had risen to +something more—or fallen to something less! She knew which it had been +to her; especially just afterward, when all his troubles had come and he +had gone away without another word of that kind. He had resolved not to +let her tie herself, and so had tied her all the tighter, if not tighter +still by never stating his resolve. But to go as far as this is to go +two or three steps further than Blanche went in her perfectly rational +retrospect: she simply saw, as indeed she had always seen,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> that they +had both been free as air; and if he was free no longer, she had +absolutely no cause for complaint, even if she was fool enough to feel it.</p> + +<p>All this she saw quite clearly in her very honest heart. And yet, he +might have told her; he need not have flown to see her, the instant he +landed, or seemed so overjoyed, and such a boy again, or made so much of +her and their common memories! He need not have begun begging her, in a +minute, to go out to Australia, and then never have mentioned it again; +he might just as well have told her if he had or hoped to have a wife to +welcome her! Of course he saw it afterward, himself; that was why the +whole subject of Australia had been dropped so suddenly and for good. +Most likely he had married beneath him; if so, she was very sorry, but +he might have said that he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> married. Had Blanche been analyzing +herself, and not just the general position of things, she would have had +hereabouts to account to her conscience for a not unpleasing spasm at +the sudden thought of his being unhappily married all the time.</p> + +<p>One proof was that he had utterly forgotten all about the waltz of +<i>Eldorado</i>—even its name! No; it had some vague associations for him, +and that was worse than none at all. Blanche had its long note (not +"bars and bars," though, Sweep) wailing in her head all night. And so +for him their friendship had only fallen to something lower, to that +hateful haunting tune that he could not even decently forget!</p> + +<p>Curiously enough, it was over Martha that she felt least able to forgive +him. Martha would say nothing, but her unspoken denunciations of Cazalet +would be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> only less intolerable than her unspoken sympathy with Blanche. +Martha had been perfectly awful about the whole thing. And Martha had +committed the final outrage of being perfectly right, from her idiotic point of view.</p> + +<p>Now among all these meditations of a long night, and of a still longer +day, in which nobody even troubled to send her word of the case at +Kingston, it would be too much to say that no thought of Hilton Toye +ever entered the mind of Blanche. She could not help liking him; he +amused her immensely; and he had proposed to her twice, and warned her +he would again. She felt the force of his warning, because she felt his +force of character and will. She literally felt these forces, as actual +emanations from the strongest personality that had ever impinged upon +her own. Not only was he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> strong, but capable and cultivated; and he +knew the whole world as most people only knew some hole or corner of it; +and could be most interesting without ever talking about himself or other people.</p> + +<p>In the day of reaction, such considerations were bound to steal in as +single spies, each with a certain consolation, not altogether innocent +of comparisons. But the battalion of Toye's virtues only marched on +Blanche when Martha came to her, on the little green rug of a lawn +behind the house, to say that Mr. Toye himself had called and was in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>Blanche stole up past the door, and quickly made herself smarter than +she had ever done by day for Walter Cazalet; at least she put on a +"dressy" blouse, her calling skirt (which always looked new), and did +what she could to her hair. All<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> this was only because Mr. Toye always +came down as if it were Mayfair, and it was rotten to make people feel +awkward if you could help it. So in sailed Blanche, in her very best for +the light of day, to be followed as soon as possible by the silver +teapot, though she had just had tea herself. And there stood Hilton +Toye, chin blue and collar black, his trousers all knees and no creases, +exactly as he had jumped out of the boat-train.</p> + +<p>"I guess I'm not fit to speak to you," he said, "but that's just what +I've come to do—for the third time!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Toye!" cried Blanche, really frightened by the face that made +his meaning clear. It relaxed a little as she shrank involuntarily, but +the compassion in his eyes and mouth did not lessen their steady determination.</p> + +<p>"I didn't have time to make myself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> presentable," he explained. "I +thought you wouldn't have me waste a moment if you understood the +situation. I want your promise to marry me right now!"</p> + +<p>Blanche began to breathe again. Evidently he was on the eve of yet +another of his journeys, probably back to America, and he wanted to go +over engaged; at first she had thought he had bad news to break to her, +but this was no worse than she had heard before. Only it was more +difficult to cope with him; everything was different, and he so much +more pressing and precipitate. She had never met this Hilton Toye +before. Yes; she was distinctly frightened by him. But in a minute she +had ceased to be frightened of herself; she knew her own mind once more, +and spoke it much as he had spoken his, quite compassionately, but just +as tersely to the point.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p><p>"One moment," he interrupted. "I said nothing about my feelings, +because they're a kind of stale proposition by this time; but for form's +sake I may state there's no change there, except in the only direction I +guess a person's feelings are liable to change toward you, Miss Blanche! +I'm a worse case than ever, if that makes any difference."</p> + +<p>Blanche shook her yellow head. "Nothing can," she said. "There must be +no possible mistake about it this time, because I want you to be very +good and never ask me again. And I'm glad you didn't make all the proper +speeches, because I needn't either, Mr. Toye! But—I know my own mind +better than I ever did until this very minute—and I could simply never marry you!"</p> + +<p>Toye accepted his fate with a ready resignation, little short of +alacrity. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> was a gleam in his somber eyes, and his blue chin came +up with a jerk. "That's talking!" said he. "Now will you promise me +never to marry Cazalet?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Toye!"</p> + +<p>"That's talking, too, and I guess I mean it to be. It's not all +dog-in-the-manger, either. I want that promise a lot more than I want +the other. You needn't marry me, Miss Blanche, but you mustn't marry Cazalet."</p> + +<p>Blanche was blazing. "But this is simply outrageous—"</p> + +<p>"I claim there's an outrageous cause for it. Are you prepared to swear +what I ask, and trust me as I'll trust you, or am I to tell you the +whole thing right now?"</p> + +<p>"You won't force me to listen to another word from you, if you're a +gentleman, Mr. Toye!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p><p>"It's not what I am that counts. Swear that to me, and I swear, on my +side, that I won't give him away to you or any one else. But it must be +the most solemn contract man and woman ever made."</p> + +<p>The silver teapot arrived at this juncture, and not inopportunely. She +had to give him his tea, with her young maid's help, and to play a tiny +part in which he supported her really beautifully. She had time to +think, almost coolly; and one thought brought a thrill. If it was a +question of her marrying or not marrying Walter Cazalet, then he must be +free, and only the doer of some dreadful deed!</p> + +<p>"What <i>has</i> he done?" she begged, with a pathetic abandonment of her +previous attitude, the moment they were by themselves.</p> + +<p>"Must I tell you?" His reluctance rang genuine.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p><p>"I insist upon it!" she flashed again.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's a long story."</p> + +<p>"Never mind. I can listen."</p> + +<p>"You know, I had to go back to Italy—"</p> + +<p>"Had you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I did go." He had slurred the first statement; this one was +characteristically deliberate. "I did go, and before I went I asked +Cazalet for an introduction to some friends of his down in Rome."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know he had any," said Blanche. She was not listening so very +well; she was, in fact, instinctively prepared to challenge every +statement, on Cazalet's behalf; and here her instinct defeated itself.</p> + +<p>"No more he has," said Toye, "but he claimed to have some. He left the +<i>Kaiser Fritz</i> the other day at Naples—just when I came aboard. I guess +he told you?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p><p>"No. I understood he came round to Southampton. Surely you shared a +cabin?"</p> + +<p>"Only from Genoa; that's where Cazalet rejoined the steamer."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"He claimed to have spent the interval mostly with friends in Rome. +Those friends don't exist, Miss Blanche," said Toye.</p> + +<p>"Is that any business of mine?" she asked him squarely.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, I'm afraid it's going to be. That is, unless you'll still +trust me—"</p> + +<p>"Go on, please."</p> + +<p>"Why, he never stayed in Rome at all, nor yet in Italy any longer than +it takes to come through on the train. Your attention for one moment!" +He took out a neat pocketbook. Blanche had opened her lips, but she did +not interrupt; she just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> grasped the arms of her chair, as though about +to bear physical pain. "The <i>Kaiser Fritz</i>"—Toye was speaking from his +book—"got to Naples late Monday afternoon, September eighth. She was +overdue, and I was mad about it, and madder still when I went aboard and +she never sailed till morning. I guess I'd wasted—"</p> + +<p>"Do tell me about Walter Cazalet!" cried Blanche. It was like small talk +from a dentist at the last moment.</p> + +<p>"I want you to understand about the steamer first," said Toye. "She +waited Monday night in the Bay of Naples, only sailed Tuesday morning, +only reached Genoa Wednesday morning, and lay there forty-eight hours, +as the German boats do, anyhow. That brings us to Friday morning before +the <i>Kaiser Fritz</i> gets quit of Italy, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—do tell me about Walter!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p><p>"He was gone ashore Monday evening before I came aboard at Naples. I +never saw him till he scrambled aboard again Friday, about the +fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour."</p> + +<p>"At Genoa?"</p> + +<p>"Sure."</p> + +<p>"And you pretend to know where he'd been?"</p> + +<p>"I guess I do know"—and Toye sighed as he raised his little book. +"Cazalet stepped on the train that left Naples six fifty Monday evening, +and off the one timed to reach Charing Cross three twenty-five Wednesday."</p> + +<p>"The day of the m—"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I never called it by the hardest name, myself; but it was seven +thirty Wednesday evening that Henry Craven got his death-blow somehow. +Well, Walter Cazalet left Charing Cross again by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> the nine o'clock that +night, and was back aboard the <i>Kaiser Fritz</i> on Friday morning—full of +his friends in Rome who didn't exist!"</p> + +<p>The note-book was put away with every symptom of relief.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you can prove what you say?" said Blanche in a voice as dull +as her unseeing eyes.</p> + +<p>"I have men to swear to him—ticket-collectors, conductors, waiters on +the restaurant-car—all up and down the line. I went over the same +ground on the same trains, so that was simple. I can also produce the +barber who claims to have taken off his beard in Paris, where he put in +hours Thursday morning."</p> + +<p>Blanche looked up suddenly, not at Toye, but past him toward an +overladen side-table against the wall. It was there that Cazalet's +photograph had stood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> among many others; until this morning she had +never missed it, for she seemed hardly to have been in her room all the +week; but she had been wondering who had removed it, whether Cazalet +himself (who had spoken of doing so, she now knew why), or Martha (whom +she would not question about it) in a fit of ungovernable disapproval. +And now there was the photograph back in its place, leather frame and all!</p> + +<p>"I know what you did," said Blanche. "You took that photograph with +you—the one on that table—and had him identified by it!"</p> + +<p>Yet she stated the fact, for his bowed head admitted it to be one, as +nothing but a fact, in the same dull voice of apathetic acquiescence in +an act of which the man himself was ashamed. She could see him wondering +at her; she even wondered at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> herself. Yet if all this were true, what +matter how the truth had come to light?</p> + +<p>"It was the night I came down to bid you good-by," he confessed, "and +didn't have time to wait. I didn't come down for the photo. I never +thought of it till I saw it there. I came down to kind of warn you, Miss +Blanche!"</p> + +<p>"Against him?" she said, as if there was only one man left in the world.</p> + +<p>"Yes—I guess I'd already warned Cazalet that I was starting on his tracks."</p> + +<p>And then Blanche just said, "Poor—old—Sweep!" as one talking to +herself. And Toye seized upon the words as she had seized on nothing from him.</p> + +<p>"Have you only pity for the fellow?" he cried; for she was gazing at the +bearded photograph without revulsion.</p> + +<p>"Of course," she answered, hardly attending.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p><p>"Even though he killed this man—even though he came across Europe to +kill him?"</p> + +<p>"You don't think it was deliberate yourself, even if he did do it."</p> + +<p>"But can you doubt that he did?" cried Toye, quick to ignore the point +she had made, yet none the less sincerely convinced upon the other. "I +guess you wouldn't if you'd heard some of the things he said to me on +the steamer; and he's made good every syllable since he landed. Why, it +explains every single thing he's done and left undone. He'll strain +every nerve to have Scruton ably defended, but he won't see the man he's +defending; says himself that he can't face him!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He said so to me," said Blanche, nodding in confirmation.</p> + +<p>"To you?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't understand him."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p><p>"But you're been seeing him all this while?"</p> + +<p>"Every day," said Blanche, her soft eyes filling suddenly. "We've +had—we've had the time of our lives!"</p> + +<p>"My God!" said Toye. "The time of your life with a man who's got another +man's blood on his hands—and that makes no difference to you! The time +of your life with the man who knew where to lay hands on the weapon he'd +done it with, who went as far as that to save the innocent, but no farther!"</p> + +<p>"He would; he will still, if it's still necessary. You don't know him, +Mr. Toye; you haven't known him all your life."</p> + +<p>"And all this makes no difference to a good and gentle woman—one of the +gentlest and the best God ever made?"</p> + +<p>"If you mean me, I won't go so far as that," said Blanche. "I must see him first."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p><p>"See Cazalet?"</p> + +<p>Toye had come to his feet, not simply in the horror and indignation +which had gradually taken possession of him, but under the stress of +some new and sudden resolve.</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Blanche; "of course I must see him as soon as possible."</p> + +<p>"Never again!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"You shall never speak to that man again, as long as ever you live," +said Toye, with the utmost emphasis and deliberation.</p> + +<p>"Who's going to prevent me?"</p> + +<p>"I am."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"By laying an information against him this minute, unless you promise +never to see or to speak to Cazalet again."</p> + +<p>Blanche felt cold and sick, but the bit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> of downright bullying did her +good. "I didn't know you were a blackmailer, Mr. Toye!"</p> + +<p>"You know I'm not; but I mean to save you from Cazalet, blackmail or +white."</p> + +<p>"To save me from a mere old friend—nothing more—<i>nothing</i>—all our +lives!"</p> + +<p>"I believe that," he said, searching her with his smoldering eyes. "You +couldn't tell a lie, I guess, not if you tried! But you would do +something; it's just a man being next door to hell that would bring a +God's angel—" His voice shook.</p> + +<p>She was as quick to soften on her side.</p> + +<p>"Don't talk nonsense, please," she begged, forcing a smile through her +distress. "Will you promise to do nothing if—if <i>I</i> promise?"</p> + +<p>"Not to go near him?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Nor to see him here?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p><p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Nor anywhere else?"</p> + +<p>"No. I give you my word."</p> + +<p>"If you break it, I break mine that minute? Is it a deal that way?"</p> + +<p>"Yes! Yes! I promise!"</p> + +<p>"Then so do I, by God!" said Hilton Toye.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>XIV</span> <span class="smaller">FAITH UNFAITHFUL</span></h2> + +<p>"It's all perfectly true," said Cazalet calmly. "Those were my movements +while I was off the ship, except for the five hours and a bit that I was +away from Charing Cross. I can't dispute a detail of all the rest. But +they'll have to fill in those five hours unless they want another case +to collapse like the one against Scruton!"</p> + +<p>Old Savage had wriggled like a venerable worm, in the experienced talons +of the Bobby's Bugbear; but then Mr. Drinkwater and his discoveries had +come still worse out of a hotter encounter with the truculent attorney; +and Cazalet had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>described the whole thing as only he could describe a +given episode, down to the ultimate dismissal of the charge against +Scruton, with a gusto the more cynical for the deliberately low pitch of +his voice. It was in the little lodging-house sitting-room at Nell +Gwynne's Cottages; he stood with his back to the crackling fire that he +had just lighted himself, as it were, already at bay; for the +folding-doors were in front of his nose, and his eyes roved incessantly +from the landing door on one side to the curtained casement on the +other. Yet sometimes he paused to gaze at the friend who had come to +warn him of his danger; and there was nothing cynical or grim about him then.</p> + +<p>Blanche had broken her word for perhaps the first time in her life; but +it had never before been extorted from her by duress, and it would be +affectation to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> credit her with much compunction on the point. Her one +great qualm lay in the possibility of Toye's turning up at any moment; +but this she had obviated to some extent by coming straight to the +cottages when he left her—presumably to look for Cazalet in London, +since she had been careful not to mention his change of address. +Cazalet, to her relief, but also a little to her hurt, she had found at +his lodgings in the neighborhood, full of the news he had not managed to +communicate to her. But it was no time for taking anything but his peril +to heart. And that they had been discussing, almost as man to man, if +rather as innocent man to innocent man; for even now, or perhaps now in +his presence least of all, Blanche could not bring herself to believe +her old friend guilty of a violent crime, however unpremeditated, for +which another had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> been allowed to suffer, for however short a time.</p> + +<p>And yet, he seemed to make no secret of it; and yet—it did explain his +whole conduct since landing, as Toye had said.</p> + +<p>She could only shut her eyes to what must have happened, even as Cazalet +himself had shut his all this wonderful week, that she had forgotten all +day in her ingratitude, but would never, in all her days, forget again!</p> + +<p>"There won't be another case," she heard herself saying, while her +thoughts ran ahead or lagged behind like sheep. "It'll never come out—I +know it won't."</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't it?" he asked so sharply that she had to account for the +words, to herself as well as to him.</p> + +<p>"Nobody knows except Mr. Toye, and he means to keep it to himself."</p> + +<p>"Why should he?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p><p>"I don't know. He'll tell you himself."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure you don't know? What can he have to tell me? Why should he +screen me, Blanche?"</p> + +<p>His eyes and voice were furious with suspicion, but still the voice was lowered.</p> + +<p>"He's a jolly good sort, you know," said Blanche, as if the whole affair +was the most ordinary one in the world. But heroics could not have +driven the sense of her remark more forcibly home to Cazalet.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he is, is he?"</p> + +<p>"I've always found him so."</p> + +<p>"So have I, the little I've seen of him. And I don't blame him for +getting on my tracks, mind you; he's a bit of a detective, I was fair +game, and he did warn me in a way. That's why I meant to have the +week—" He stopped and looked away.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p><p>"I know. And nothing can undo <i>that</i>," she only said; but her voice +swelled with thanksgiving. And Cazalet looked reassured; the hot +suspicion died out of his eyes, but left them gloomily perplexed.</p> + +<p>"Still, I can't understand it. I don't believe it, either! I'm in his +hands. What have I done to be saved by Toye? He's probably scouring +London for me—if he isn't watching this window at this minute!"</p> + +<p>He went to the curtains as he spoke. Simultaneously Blanche sprang up, +to entreat him to fly while he could. That had been her first object in +coming to him as she had done, and yet, once with him, she had left it +to the last! And now it was too late; he was at the window, chuckling +significantly to himself; he had opened it, and he was leaning out.</p> + +<p>"That you, Toye, down there? Come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> up and show yourself! I want to see +you."</p> + +<p>He turned in time to dart in front of the folding-doors as Blanche +reached them, white and shuddering. The flush of impulsive bravado fled +from his face at the sight of hers.</p> + +<p>"You can't go in there. What's the matter?" he whispered. "Why should +<i>you</i> be afraid of Hilton Toye?"</p> + +<p>How could she tell him? Before she had found a word, the landing door +opened, and Hilton Toye was in the room, looking at her.</p> + +<p>"Keep your voice down," said Cazalet anxiously. "Even if it's all over +with me but the shouting, we needn't start the shouting here!"</p> + +<p>He chuckled savagely at his jest; and now Toye stood looking at him.</p> + +<p>"I've heard all you've done," continued<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> Cazalet. "I don't blame you a +bit. If it had been the other way about, I might have given you less run +for your money. I've heard what you've found out about my mysterious +movements, and you're absolutely right as far as you go. You don't know +why I took the train at Naples, and traveled across Europe without a +hand-bag. It wasn't quite the put-up job you may think. But, if it makes +you any happier, I may as well tell you that I <i>was</i> at Uplands that +night, and I <i>did</i> get out through the foundations!"</p> + +<p>The insane impetuosity of the man was his master now. He was a living +fire of impulse that had burst into a blaze. His voice was raised in +spite of his warning to the others, and the very first sound of Toye's +was to remind him that he was forgetting his own advice. Toye had not +looked a second time at Blanche; nor did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> he now; but he took in the +silenced Cazalet from head to heel, by inches.</p> + +<p>"I always guessed you might be crazy, and I now know it," said Hilton +Toye. "Still, I judge you're not so crazy as to deny that while you were +in that house you struck down Henry Craven, and left him for dead?"</p> + +<p>Cazalet stood like a red-hot stone.</p> + +<p>"Miss Blanche," said Toye, turning to her rather shyly, "I guess I can't +do what I said just yet. I haven't breathed a word, not yet, and perhaps +I never will, if you'll come away with me now—back to your home—and +never see Henry Craven's murderer again!"</p> + +<p>"And who may he be?" cried a voice that brought all three face-about.</p> + +<p>The folding-doors had opened, and a fourth figure was standing between the two rooms.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>XV</span> <span class="smaller">THE PERSON UNKNOWN</span></h2> + +<p>The intruder was a shaggy elderly man, of so cadaverous an aspect that +his face alone cried for his death-bed; and his gaunt frame took up the +cry, as it swayed upon the threshold in dressing-gown and bedroom +slippers that Toye instantly recognized as belonging to Cazalet. The man +had a shock of almost white hair, and a less gray beard clipped roughly +to a point. An unwholesome pallor marked the fallen features; and the +envenomed eyes burned low in their sockets, as they dealt with Blanche +but fastened on Hilton Toye.</p> + +<p>"What do <i>you</i> know about Henry <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>Craven's murderer?" he demanded in a +voice between a croak and a crow. "Have they run in some other poor +devil, or were you talking about me? If so, I'll start a libel action, +and call Cazalet and that lady as witnesses!"</p> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/ill04.jpg" width='464' height='700' alt="What do you know about Henry Craven's murderer" /></div> + +<p class="bold">"What do you know about Henry Craven's murderer?"</p> + +<p>"This is Scruton," explained Cazalet, "who was only liberated this +evening after being detained a week on a charge that ought never to have +been brought, as I've told you both all along." Scruton thanked him with +a bitter laugh. "I've brought him here," concluded Cazalet, "because I +don't think he's fit enough to be about alone."</p> + +<p>"Nice of him, isn't it?" said Scruton bitterly. "I'm so fit that they +wanted to keep me somewhere else longer than they'd any right; that may +be why they lost no time in getting hold of me again. Nice, considerate, +kindly country! Ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> years isn't long enough to have you as a dishonored +guest. 'Won't you come back for another week, and see if we can't +arrange a nice little sudden death and burial for you?' But they +couldn't you see, blast 'em!"</p> + +<p>He subsided into the best chair in the room, which Blanche had wheeled +up behind him; a moment later he looked round, thanked her curtly, and +lay back with closed eyes until suddenly he opened them on Cazalet.</p> + +<p>"And what was that <i>you</i> were saying—that about traveling across Europe +and being at Uplands that night? I thought you came round by sea? And +what night do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"The night it all happened," said Cazalet steadily.</p> + +<p>"You mean the night some person unknown knocked Craven on the head?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p><p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>The sick man threw himself forward in the chair. "You never told me +this!" he cried suspiciously; both the voice and the man seemed stronger.</p> + +<p>"There was no point in telling you."</p> + +<p>"Did you see the person?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Then he isn't unknown to you?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't see him well."</p> + +<p>Scruton looked sharply at the two mute listeners. They were very intent, +indeed. "Who are these people, Cazalet? No! I know one of 'em," he +answered himself in the next breath. "It's Blanche Macnair, isn't it? I +thought at first it must be a younger sister grown up like her. You'll +forgive prison manners, Miss Macnair, if that's still your name. You +look a woman to trust—if there is one—and you gave me your chair. +Anyhow, you've been in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> for a penny and you can stay in for a pound, as +far as I care! But who's your Amer'can friend, Cazalet?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Hilton Toye, who spotted that I'd been all the way to Uplands and +back when I claimed to have been in Rome!"</p> + +<p>There was a touch of Scruton's bitterness in Cazalet's voice; and by +some subtle process it had a distinctly mollifying effect on the really embittered man.</p> + +<p>"What on earth were you doing at Uplands?" he asked, in a kind of +confidential bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"I went down to see a man."</p> + +<p>Toye himself could not have cut and measured more deliberate monosyllables.</p> + +<p>"Craven?" suggested Scruton.</p> + +<p>"No; a man I expected to find at Craven's."</p> + +<p>"The writer of the letter you found at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> Cook's office in Naples the +night you landed there, I guess!"</p> + +<p>It really was Toye this time, and there was no guesswork in his tone. +Obviously he was speaking by his little book, though he had not got it out again.</p> + +<p>"How do you know I went to Cook's?"</p> + +<p>"I know every step you took between the <i>Kaiser Fritz</i> and Charing Cross +and Charing Cross and the <i>Kaiser Fritz</i>!"</p> + +<p>Scruton listened to this interchange with keen attention, hanging on +each man's lips with his sunken eyes; both took it calmly, but Scruton's +surprise was not hidden by a sardonic grin.</p> + +<p>"You've evidently had a stern chase with a Yankee clipper!" said he. "If +he's right about the letter, Cazalet, I should say so; presumably it +wasn't from Craven himself?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p><p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Yet it brought you across Europe to Craven's house?"</p> + +<p>"Well—to the back of his house! I expected to meet my man on the river."</p> + +<p>"Was that how you missed him more or less?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose it was."</p> + +<p>Scruton ruminated a little, broke into his offensive laugh, and checked +it instantly of his own accord. "This is really interesting," he +croaked. "You get to London—at what time was it?"</p> + +<p>"Nominally three twenty-five; but the train ran thirteen minutes late," +said Hilton Toye.</p> + +<p>"And you're on the river by what time?" Scruton asked Cazalet.</p> + +<p>"I walked over Hungerford Bridge, took the first train to Surbiton, got +a boat there, and just dropped down with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> stream. I don't suppose +the whole thing took me very much more than an hour."</p> + +<p>"Aren't you forgetting something?" said Toye.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was. It was I who telephoned to the house and found that Craven +was out motoring; so there was no hurry."</p> + +<p>"Yet you weren't going to see Henry Craven?" murmured Toye.</p> + +<p>Cazalet did not answer. His last words had come in a characteristic +burst; now he had his mouth shut tight, and his eyes were fast to +Scruton. He might have been in the witness-box already, a doomed wretch +cynically supposed to be giving evidence on his own behalf, but actually +only baring his neck by inches to the rope, under the joint persuasion +of judge and counsel. But he had one friend by him still, one who had +edged a little nearer in the pause.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p><p>"But you did see the man you went to see?" said Scruton.</p> + +<p>Cazalet paused. "I don't know. Eventually somebody brushed past me in +the dark. I did think then—but I can't swear to him even now!"</p> + +<p>"Tell us about it."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that, Scruton? Do you insist on hearing all that happened? +I'm not asking Toye; he can do what he likes. But you, Scruton—you've +been through a lot, you know—you ought to have stopped in bed—do you +really want this on top of all?"</p> + +<p>"Go ahead," said Scruton. "I'll have a drink when you've done; somebody +give me a cigarette meanwhile."</p> + +<p>Cazalet supplied the cigarette, struck the match, and held it with +unfaltering hand. The two men's eyes met strangely across the flame.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p><p>"I'll tell you all exactly what happened; you can believe me or not as +you like. You won't forget that I knew every inch of the ground—except +one altered bit that explained itself." Cazalet turned to Blanche with a +significant look, but she only drew an inch nearer still. "Well, it was +in the little creek, where the boat-house is, that I waited for my man. +He never came—by the river. I heard the motor, but it wasn't Henry +Craven that I wanted to see, but the man who was coming to see him. +Eventually I thought I must have made a mistake, or he might have +changed his mind and come by road. The dressing-gong had gone; at least +I supposed it was that by the time. It was almost quite dark, and I +landed and went up the path past the back premises to the front of the +house. So far I hadn't seen a soul, or been seen by one, evidently; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> +the French windows were open in what used to be my father's library, the +room was all lit up, and just as I got there a man ran out into the +flood of light and—"</p> + +<p>"I thought you said he brushed by you in the dark?" interrupted Toye.</p> + +<p>"I was in the dark; so was he in another second; and no power on earth +would induce me to swear to him. Do you want to hear the rest, Scruton, +or are you another unbeliever?"</p> + +<p>"I want to hear every word—more than ever!"</p> + +<p>Toye cocked his head at both question and answer, but inclined it +quickly as Cazalet turned to him before proceeding.</p> + +<p>"I went in and found Henry Craven lying in his blood. That's gospel—it +was so I found him—lying just where he had fallen in a heap out of the +leather chair at his desk. The top right-hand drawer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> of his desk was +open, the key in it and the rest of the bunch still swinging! A revolver +lay as it had dropped upon the desk—it had upset the ink—and there +were cartridges lying loose in the open drawer, and the revolver was +loaded. I swept it back into the drawer, turned the key and removed it +with the bunch. But there was something else on the desk—that +silver-mounted truncheon—and a man's cap was lying on the floor. I +picked them both up. My first instinct, I confess it, was to remove +every sign of manslaughter and to leave the scene to be reconstructed +into one of accident—seizure—anything but what it was!"</p> + +<p>He paused as if waiting for a question. None was asked. Toye's mouth +might have been sewn up, his eyes were like hatpins driven into his +head. The other two simply stared.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p><p>"It was a mad idea, but I had gone mad," continued Cazalet. "I had +hated the victim alive, and it couldn't change me that he was dead or +dying; <i>that</i> didn't make him a white man, and neither did it +necessarily blacken the poor devil who had probably suffered from him +like the rest of us and only struck him down in self-defense. The +revolver on the desk made that pretty plain. It was out of the way, but +now I saw blood all over the desk as well; it was soaking into the +blotter, and it knocked the bottom out of my idea. What was to be done? +I had meddled already; how could I give the alarm without giving myself +away to that extent, and God knows how much further? The most awful +moment of the lot came as I hesitated—the dinner-gong went off in the +hall outside the door! I remember<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> watching the thing on the floor to +see if it would move.</p> + +<p>"Then I lost my head—absolutely. I turned the key in the door, to give +myself a few seconds' grace or start; it reminded me of the keys in my +hands. One of them was one of those little round bramah keys. It seemed +familiar to me even after so many years. I looked up, and there was my +father's Michelangelo closet, with its little round bramah keyhole. I +opened it as the outer door was knocked at and then tried. But my mad +instinct of altering every possible appearance, to mislead the police, +stuck to me to the last. And I took the man's watch and chain into the +closet with me, as well as the cap and truncheon that I had picked up before.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how long I was above ground, so to speak, but one of my +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>father's objects had been to make his retreat sound-tight, and I could +scarcely hear what was going on in the room. That encouraged me; and two +of you don't need telling how I got out through the foundations, because +you know all about the hole I made myself as a boy in the floor under +the oilcloth. It took some finding with single matches; but the fear of +your neck gives you eyes in your finger-ends, and gimlets, too, by Jove! +The worst part was getting out at the other end, into the cellars; there +were heaps of empty bottles to move, one by one, before there was room +to open the manhole door and to squirm out over the slab; and I thought +they rang like a peal of bells, but I put them all back again, and +apparently ... nobody overheard in the scullery.</p> + +<p>"The big dog barked at me like blazes—he did again the other day—but +nobody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> seemed to hear him either. I got to my boat, tipped a fellow on +the towing path to take it back and pay for it—why haven't the police +got hold of him?—and ran down to the bridge over the weir. I stopped a +big car with a smart shaver smoking his pipe at the wheel. I should have +thought he'd have come forward for the reward that was put up; but I +pretended I was late for dinner I had in town, and I let him drop me at +the Grand Hotel. He cost me a fiver, but I had on a waistcoat lined with +notes, and I'd more than five minutes in hand at Charing Cross. If you +want to know, it was the time in hand that gave me the whole idea of +doubling back to Genoa; I must have been half-way up to town before I thought of it!"</p> + +<p>He had told the whole thing as he always could tell an actual +experience; that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> was one reason why it rang so true to one listener at +every point. But the sick man's sunken eyes had advanced from their +sockets in cumulative amazement. And Hilton Toye laughed shortly when the end was reached.</p> + +<p>"You figure some on our credulity!" was his first comment.</p> + +<p>"I don't figure on anything from you, Toye, except a pair of handcuffs +as a first instalment!"</p> + +<p>Toye rose in prompt acceptance of the challenge. "Seriously, Cazalet, +you ask us to believe that you did all this to screen a man you didn't +have time to recognize?"</p> + +<p>"I've told you the facts."</p> + +<p>"Well, I guess you'd better tell them to the police." Toye took his hat +and stick. Scruton was struggling from his chair. Blanche stood +petrified, a dove<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> under a serpent's spell, as Toye made her a sardonic +bow from the landing door. "You broke your side of the contract, Miss +Blanche! I guess it's up to me to complete."</p> + +<p>"Wait!"</p> + +<p>It was Scruton's raven croak; he had tottered to his feet.</p> + +<p>"Sure," said Toye, "if you've anything you want to say as an interested +party."</p> + +<p>"Only this—he's told the truth!"</p> + +<p>"Well, can he prove it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Scruton. "But I can!"</p> + +<p>"You?" Blanche chimed in there.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'd like that drink first, if you don't mind, Cazalet." It was +Blanche who got it for him, in an instant. "Thank you! I'd say more if +my blessing was worth having—but here's something that is. Listen to +this, you American <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>gentleman: I was the man who wrote to him in Naples. +Leave it at that a minute; it was my second letter to him; the first was +to Australia, in answer to one from him. It was the full history of my +downfall. I got a warder to smuggle it out. That letter was my one chance."</p> + +<p>"I know it by heart," said Cazalet. "It was that and nothing else that +made me leave before the shearing."</p> + +<p>"To meet me when I came out!" Scruton explained in a hoarse whisper. +"To—to keep me from going straight to that man, as I'd told him I +should in my first letter! But you can't hit these things off to the day +or the week; he'd told me where to write to him on his voyage, and I +wrote to Naples, but that letter did not get smuggled out. My warder +friend had got the sack. I had to put what I'd got to say so that you +could read it two ways. So I told you, Cazalet, I was going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> straight up +the river for a row—and you can pronounce that two ways. And I said I +hoped I shouldn't break a scull—but there's another way of spelling +that, and it was the other way I meant!" He chuckled grimly. "I wanted +you to lie low and let <i>me</i> lie low if that happened. I wanted just one +man in the world to know I'd done it. But that's how we came to miss +each other, for you timed it to a tick, if you hadn't misread me about the river."</p> + +<p>He drank again, stood straighter, and found a fuller voice.</p> + +<p>"Yet I never meant to do it unless he made me, and at the back of my +brain I never thought he would. I thought he'd do something for me, +after all he'd done before! Shall I tell you what he did?"</p> + +<p>"Got out his revolver!" cried Cazalet in a voice that was his own +justification as well.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p><p>"Pretending it was going to be his check-book!" said Scruton through +his teeth. "But I heard him trying to cock it inside his drawer. There +was his special constable's truncheon hanging on the wall—silver +mounted, for all the world to know how he'd stood up for law and order +in the sight of men! I tell you it was a joy to feel the weight of that +truncheon, and to see the hero of Trafalgar Square fumbling with a thing +he didn't understand! I hit him as hard as God would let me—and the +rest you know—except that I nearly did trip over the man who swore it +was broad daylight at the time!"</p> + +<p>He tottered to the folding-doors, and stood there a moment, pointing to +Cazalet with a hand that twitched as terribly as his dreadful face.</p> + +<p>"No—the rest you did—the rest you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> did to save what wasn't worth +saving! But—I think—I'll hold out long enough to thank you—just a +little!" He was gone with a gibbering smile.</p> + +<p>Cazalet turned straight to Toye at the other door. "Well? Aren't you +going, too? You were near enough, you see! I'm an accessory all +right"—he dropped his voice—"but I'd be principal if I could instead +of <i>him</i>!"</p> + +<p>But Toye had come back into the room, twinkling with triumph, even +rubbing his hands. "You didn't see? You didn't see? I never meant to go +at all; it was a bit of bluff to make him own up, and it did, too, bully!"</p> + +<p>The couple gasped.</p> + +<p>"You mean to tell me," cried Cazalet, "that you believed my story all the time?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I didn't have a moment's doubt about it!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p><p>Cazalet drew away from the chuckling creature and his crafty glee. But +Blanche came forward and held out her hand.</p> + +<p>"Will you forgive me, Mr. Toye?"</p> + +<p>"Sure, if I had anything to forgive. It's the other way around, I guess, +and about time I did something to help." He edged up to the +folding-door. "This is a two-man job, Cazalet, the way I make it out. +Guess it's my watch on deck!"</p> + +<p>"The other's the way to the police station," said Cazalet densely.</p> + +<p>Toye turned solemn on the word. "It's the way to hell, if Miss Blanche +will forgive me! This is more like the other place, thanks to you folks. +Guess I'll leave the angels in charge!"</p> + +<p>Angelic or not, the pair were alone at last; and through the doors they +heard a quavering croak of welcome to the rather human god from the American machine.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p><p>"I'm afraid he'll never go back with you to the bush," whispered +Blanche.</p> + +<p>"Scruton?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid, too. But I wanted to take somebody else out, too. I was +trying to say so over a week ago, when we were talking about old Venus +Potts. Blanchie, will you come?"</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">THE END</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Thousandth Woman, by Ernest W. 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Hornung + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Thousandth Woman + +Author: Ernest W. Hornung + +Illustrator: Frank Snapp + +Release Date: August 13, 2011 [EBook #37062] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THOUSANDTH WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +THE THOUSANDTH WOMAN + + +[Illustration: "I wonder who can have done it."] + + + + +THE THOUSANDTH WOMAN + +_By_ +ERNEST W. HORNUNG + +_Author of_ +THE AMATEUR CRACKSMAN, RAFFLES, ETC. + +ILLUSTRATED BY +FRANK SNAPP + +INDIANAPOLIS +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY +PUBLISHERS + + +COPYRIGHT 1913 +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + +PRESS OF +BRAUNWORTH & CO. +BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS +BROOKLYN, N. Y. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I A SMALL WORLD 1 + + II SECOND SIGHT 16 + + III IN THE TRAIN 29 + + IV DOWN THE RIVER 42 + + V AN UNTIMELY VISITOR 64 + + VI VOLUNTARY SERVICE 83 + + VII AFTER MICHELANGELO 98 + +VIII FINGER-PRINTS 117 + + IX FAIR WARNING 134 + + X THE WEEK OF THEIR LIVES 146 + + XI IN COUNTRY AND IN TOWN 156 + + XII THE THOUSANDTH MAN 169 + +XIII QUID PRO QUO 181 + + XIV FAITH UNFAITHFUL 205 + + XV THE PERSON UNKNOWN 214 + + + + +THE THOUSANDTH WOMAN + + + + +I + +A SMALL WORLD + + +Cazalet sat up so suddenly that his head hit the woodwork over the upper +berth. His own voice still rang in his startled ears. He wondered how +much he had said, and how far it could have carried above the throb of +the liner's screws and the mighty pounding of the water against her +plates. Then his assembling senses coupled the light in the cabin with +his own clear recollection of having switched it off before turning +over. And then he remembered how he had been left behind at Naples, and +rejoined the _Kaiser Fritz_ at Genoa, only to find that he no longer had +a cabin to himself. + +A sniff assured Cazalet that he was neither alone at the moment nor yet +the only one awake; he pulled back the swaying curtain, which he had +taken to keeping drawn at night; and there on the settee, with the +thinnest of cigarettes between his muscular fingers, sat a man with a +strong blue chin and the quizzical solemnity of an animated sphinx. + +It was his cabin companion, an American named Hilton Toye, and Cazalet +addressed him with nervous familiarity. + +"I say! Have I been talking in my sleep?" + +"Why, yes!" replied Hilton Toye, and broke into a smile that made a +human being of him. + +Cazalet forced a responsive grin, as he reached for his own cigarettes. +"What did I say?" he asked, with an amused curiosity at variance with +his shaking hand and shining forehead. + +Toye took him in from crown to fingertips, with something deep behind +his kindly smile. "I judge," said he, "you were dreaming of some drama +you've been seeing ashore, Mr. Cazalet." + +"Dreaming!" said Cazalet, wiping his face. "It was a nightmare! I must +have turned in too soon after dinner. But I should like to know what I +said." + +"I can tell you word for word. You said, 'Henry Craven--dead!' and then +you said, 'Dead--dead--Henry Craven!' as if you'd got to have it both +ways to make sure." + +"It's true," said Cazalet, shuddering. "I saw him lying dead, in my +dream." + +Hilton Toye took a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket. "Thirteen +minutes to one in the morning," he said, "and now it's September +eighteenth. Take a note of that, Mr. Cazalet. It may be another case of +second sight for your psychical research society." + +"I don't care if it is." Cazalet was smoking furiously. + +"Meaning it was no great friend you dreamed was dead?" + +"No friend at all, dead or alive!" + +"I'm kind of wondering," said Toye, winding his watch up slowly, "if +he's by way of being a friend of mine. I know a Henry Craven over in +England. Lives along the river, down Kingston way, in a big house." + +"Called Uplands?" + +"Yes, sir! That's the man. Little world, isn't it?" + +The man in the upper berth had to hold on as his curtains swung clear; +the man tilted back on the settee, all attention all the time, was more +than ever an effective foil to him. Without the kindly smile that went +as quickly as it came, Hilton Toye was somber, subtle and demure. +Cazalet, on the other hand, was of sanguine complexion and impetuous +looks. He was tanned a rich bronze about the middle of the face, but it +broke off across his forehead like the coloring of a meerschaum pipe. +Both men were in their early prime, and each stood roughly for his race +and type: the traveled American who knows the world, and the elemental +Britisher who has made some one loose end of it his own. + +"I thought of my Henry Craven," continued Toye, "as soon as ever you +came out with yours. But it seemed a kind of ordinary name. I might +have known it was the same if I'd recollected the name of his firm. +Isn't it Craven & Cazalet, the stockbrokers, down in Tokenhouse Yard?" + +"That's it," said Cazalet bitterly. "But there have been none of us in +it since my father died ten years ago." + +"But you're Henry Craven's old partner's son?" + +"I'm his only son." + +"Then no wonder you dream about Henry Craven," cried Toye, "and no +wonder it wouldn't break your heart if your dream came true." + +"It wouldn't," said Cazalet through his teeth. "He wasn't a white man to +me or mine--whatever you may have found him." + +"Oh! I don't claim to like him a lot," said Toye. + +"But you seem to know a good deal about him?" + +"I had a little place near his one summer. I know only what I heard down +there." + +"What did you hear?" asked Cazalet. "I've been away ten years, ever +since the crash that ruined everybody but the man at the bottom of the +whole thing. It would be a kindness to tell me what you heard." + +"Well, I guess you've said it yourself right now. That man seems to have +beggared everybody all around except himself; that's how I make it out," +said Hilton Toye. + +"He did worse," said Cazalet through his teeth. "He killed my poor +father; he banished me to the wilds of Australia; and he sent a better +man than himself to prison for fourteen years!" + +Toye opened his dark eyes for once. "Is that so? No. I never heard +that," said he. + +"You hear it now. He did all that, indirectly, and I don't care who +hears me say so. I didn't realize it at the time. I was too young, and +the whole thing laid me out too flat; but I know it now, and I've known +it long enough. It was worse than a crash. It was a scandal. That was +what finished us off, all but Henry Craven! There'd been a gigantic +swindle--special investments recommended by the firm, bogus certificates +and all the rest of it. We were all to blame, of course. My poor father +ought never to have been a business man at all; he should have been a +poet. Even I--I was only a youngster in the office, but I ought to have +known what was going on. But Henry Craven _did_ know. He was in it up to +the neck, though a fellow called Scruton did the actual job. Scruton +got fourteen years--and Craven got our old house on the river!" + +"And feathered it pretty well!" said Toye, nodding. "Yes, I did hear +that. And I can tell you they don't think any better of him, in the +neighborhood, for going to live right there. But how did he stop the +other man's mouth, and--how do you know?" + +"Never mind how I know," said Cazalet. "Scruton was a friend of mine, +though an older man; he was good to me, though he was a wrong 'un +himself. He paid for it--paid for two--that I _can_ say! But he was +engaged to Ethel Craven at the time, was going to be taken into +partnership on their marriage, and you can put two and two together for +yourself." + +"Did she wait for him?" + +"About as long as you'd expect of the breed! She was her father's +daughter. I wonder you didn't come across her and her husband!" + +"I didn't see so much of the Craven crowd," replied Hilton Toye. "I +wasn't stuck on them either. Say, Cazalet, I wouldn't be that old man +when Scruton comes out, would you?" + +But Cazalet showed that he could hold his tongue when he liked, and his +grim look was not so legible as some that had come and gone before. This +one stuck until Toye produced a big flask from his grip, and the talk +shifted to less painful ground. It was the last night in the Bay of +Biscay, and Cazalet told how he had been in it a fortnight on his way +out by sailing-vessel. He even told it with considerable humor, and hit +off sundry passengers of ten years ago as though they had been aboard +the German boat that night; for he had gifts of anecdote and verbal +portraiture, and in their unpremeditated cups Toye drew him out about +the bush until the shadows passed for minutes from the red-brick face +with the white-brick forehead. + +"I remember thinking I would dig for gold," said Cazalet. "That's all I +knew about Australia; that and bushrangers and dust-storms and +bush-fires! But you can have adventures of sorts if you go far enough +up-country for 'em; it still pays you to know how to use your fists out +there. I didn't, but I was picking it up before I'd been out three +months, and in six I was as ready as anybody to take off my coat. I +remember once at a bush shanty they dished up such fruity chops that I +said I'd fight the cook if they'd send _him_ up; and I'm blowed if it +wasn't a fellow I'd been at school with and worshiped as no end of a +swell at games! Potts his name was, old Venus Potts, the best looking +chap in the school among other things; and there he was, cooking carrion +at twenty-five bob a week! Instead of fighting we joined forces, got a +burr-cutting job on a good station, then a better one over shearing, and +after that I wormed my way in as bookkeeper, and my pal became one of +the head overseers. Now we're our own bosses with a share in the show, +and the owner comes up only once a year to see how things are looking." + +"I hope he had a daughter," said Toye, "and that you're going to marry +her, if you haven't yet?" + +Cazalet laughed, but the shadow had returned. "No. I left that to my +pal," he said. "_He_ did that all right!" + +"Then I advise you to go and do likewise," rejoined his new friend with +a geniality impossible to take amiss. "I shouldn't wonder, now, if +there's some girl you left behind you." + +Cazalet shook his head. "None who would look on herself in that light," +he interrupted. It was all he said, but once more Toye was regarding him +as shrewdly as when the night was younger, and the littleness of the +world had not yet made them confidant and boon companion. + +Eight bells actually struck before their great talk ended and Cazalet +swore that he missed the "watches aft, sir!" of the sailing-vessel ten +years before; and recalled how they had never changed watch without +putting the ship about, his last time in the bay. + +"Say!" exclaimed Hilton Toye, knitting his brows over some nebulous +recollection of his own. "I seem to have heard of you and some of your +yarns before. Didn't you spend nights in a log-hut miles and miles from +any other human being?" + +It was as they were turning in at last, but the question spoiled a yawn +for Cazalet. + +"Sometimes, at one of our out-stations," said he, looking puzzled. + +"I've seen your photograph," said Toye, regarding him with a more +critical stare. "But it was with a beard." + +"I had it off when I was ashore the other day," said Cazalet. "I always +meant to, before the end of the voyage." + +"I see. It was a Miss Macnair showed me that photograph--Miss Blanche +Macnair lives in a little house down there near your old home. I judge +hers is another old home that's been broken up since your day." + +"They've all got married," said Cazalet. + +"Except Miss Blanche. You write to her some, Mr. Cazalet?" + +"Once a year--regularly. It was a promise. We were kids together," he +explained, as he climbed back into the upper berth. + +"Guess you were a lucky kid," said the voice below. "She's one in a +thousand, Miss Blanche Macnair!" + + + + +II + +SECOND SIGHT + + +Southampton Water was an ornamental lake dotted with fairy lamps. The +stars above seemed only a far-away reflex of those below; but in their +turn they shimmered on the sleek silken arm of sleeping sea. It was a +midsummer night, lagging a whole season behind its fellows. But already +it was so late that the English passengers on the _Kaiser Fritz_ had +abandoned all thought of catching the last train up to London. + +They tramped the deck in their noisy, shiny, shore-going boots; they +manned the rail in lazy inarticulate appreciation of the nocturne in +blue stippled with green and red and countless yellow lights. Some +delivered themselves of the patriotic platitudes which become the homing +tourist who has seen no foreign land to touch his own. But one who had +seen more than sights and cities, one who had been ten years buried in +the bush, one with such yarns to spin behind those outpost lights of +England, was not even on deck to hail them back into his ken. Achilles +in his tent was no more conspicuous absentee than Cazalet in his cabin +as the _Kaiser Fritz_ steamed sedately up Southampton Water. + +He had finished packing; the stateroom floor was impassable with the +baggage that Cazalet had wanted on the five-weeks' voyage. There was +scarcely room to sit down, but in what there was sat Cazalet like a soul +in torment. All the vultures of the night before, of his dreadful dream, +and of the poignant reminiscences to which his dream had led, might +have been gnawing at his vitals as he sat there waiting to set foot once +more in the land from which a bitter blow had driven him. + +Yet the bitterness might have been allayed by the consciousness that he, +at any rate, had turned it to account. It had been, indeed, the making +of him; thanks to that stern incentive, even some of the sweets of a +deserved success were already his. But there was no hint of complacency +in Cazalet's clouded face and heavy attitude. He looked as if he had not +slept, after all, since his nightmare; almost as if he could not trust +himself to sleep again. His face was pale, even in that torrid zone +between the latitudes protected in the bush by beard and wide-awake. And +he jumped to his feet as suddenly as the screw stopped for the first +time; but that might have been just the curious shock which its +cessation always causes after days at sea. Only the same thing happened +again and yet again, as often as ever the engines paused before the end. +Cazalet would spring up and watch his stateroom door with clenched fists +and haunted eyes. But it was some long time before the door flew open, +and then slammed behind Hilton Toye. + +Toye was in a state of excitement even more abnormal than Cazalet's +nervous despondency, which indeed it prevented him from observing. It +was instantaneously clear that Toye was astounded, thrilled, almost +triumphant, but as yet just drawing the line at that. A newspaper +fluttered in his hand. + +"Second sight?" he ejaculated, as though it were the night before and +Cazalet still shaken by his dream. "I guess you've got it in full +measure, pressed down and running over, Mr. Cazalet!" + +It was a sorry sample of his talk. Hilton Toye did not usually mix the +ready metaphors that nevertheless had to satisfy an inner censor, of +some austerity, before they were allowed to leave those deliberate lips. +As a rule there was dignity in that deliberation; it never for a moment, +or for any ordinary moment, suggested want of confidence, for example. +It could even dignify some outworn modes of transatlantic speech which +still preserved a perpetual freshness in the mouth of Hilton Toye. Yet +now, in his strange excitement, word and tone alike were on the level of +the stage American's. It was not less than extraordinary. + +"You don't mean about--" Cazalet seemed to be swallowing. + +"I do, sir!" cried Hilton Toye. + +"--about Henry Craven?" + +"Sure." + +"Has--something or other--happened to him?" + +"Yep." + +"You don't mean to say he's--dead?" + +"Last Wednesday night!" Toye looked at his paper. "No, I guess I'm +wrong. Seems it happened Wednesday, but he only passed away Sunday +morning." + +Cazalet still sat staring at him--there was not room for two of them on +their feet--but into his heavy stare there came a gleam of leaden +wisdom. "This was Thursday morning," he said, "so I didn't dream of it +when it happened, after all." + +"You dreamed you saw him lying dead, and so he was," said Toye. "The +funeral's been to-day. I don't know, but that seems to me just about the +next nearest thing to seeing the crime perpetrated in a vision." + +"Crime!" cried Cazalet. "What crime?" + +"Murder, sir!" said Hilton Toye. "Wilful, brutal, bloody murder! Here's +the paper; better read it for yourself. I'm glad he wasn't a friend of +yours, or mine either, but it's a bad end even for your worst enemy." + +The paper fluttered in Cazalet's clutch as it had done in Toye's; but +that was as natural as his puzzled frown over the cryptic allusions of a +journal that had dealt fully with the ascertainable facts in previous +issues. Some few emerged between the lines. Henry Craven had received +his fatal injuries on the Wednesday of the previous week. The thing had +happened in his library, at or about half past seven in the evening; but +how a crime, which was apparently a profound mystery, had been timed to +within a minute of its commission did not appear among the latest +particulars. No arrest had been made. No clue was mentioned, beyond the +statement that the police were still searching for a definite instrument +with which it was evidently assumed that the deed had been committed. +There was in fact a close description of an unusual weapon, a special +constable's very special truncheon. It had hung as a cherished trophy on +the library wall, from which it was missing, while the very imprint of a +silver shield, mounted on the thick end of the weapon, was stated to +have been discovered on the scalp of the fractured skull. But that was a +little bit of special reporting, typical of the enterprising sheet that +Toye had procured. The inquest, merely opened on the Monday, had been +adjourned to the day of issue. + +"We must get hold of an evening paper," said Cazalet. "Fancy his own +famous truncheon! He had it mounted and inscribed himself, so that it +shouldn't be forgotten how he'd fought for law and order at Trafalgar +Square! That was the man all over!" + +His voice and manner achieved the excessive indifference which the +English type holds due from itself after any excess of feeling. Toye +also was himself again, his alert mind working keenly yet darkly in his +acute eyes. + +"I wonder if it was a murder?" he speculated. "I bet it wasn't a +deliberate murder." + +"What else could it have been?" + +"Kind of manslaughter. Deliberate murderers don't trust to chance +weapons hanging on their victims' walls." + +"You forget," said Cazalet, "that he was robbed as well." + +"Do they claim that?" said Hilton Toye. "I guess I skipped some. Where +does it say anything about his being robbed?" + +"Here!" Cazalet had scanned the paper eagerly; his finger drummed upon +the place. "'The police,'" he read out, in some sort of triumph, "'have +now been furnished with a full description of the missing watch and +trinkets and the other articles believed to have been taken from the +pockets of the deceased.' What's that but robbery?" + +"You're dead right," said Toye. "I missed that somehow. Yet who in +thunder tracks a man down to rob and murder him in his own home? But +when you've brained a man, because you couldn't keep your hands off him, +you might deliberately do all the rest to make it seem like the work of +thieves." + +Hilton Toye looked a judge of deliberation as he measured his +irrefutable words. He looked something more. Cazalet could not tear his +blue eyes from the penetrating pair that met them with a somber twinkle, +an enlightened gusto, quite uncomfortably suggestive at such a moment. + +"You aren't a detective, by any chance, are you?" cried Cazalet, with +rather clumsy humor. + +"No, sir! But I've often thought I wouldn't mind being one," said Toye, +chuckling. "I rather figure I might do something at it. If things don't +go my way in your old country, and they put up a big enough reward, why, +here's a man I knew and a place I know, and I might have a mind to try +my hand." + +They went ashore together, and to the same hotel at Southampton for the +night. Perhaps neither could have said from which side the initiative +came; but midnight found the chance pair with their legs under the same +heavy Victorian mahogany, devouring cold beef, ham and pickles as +phlegmatically as commercial travelers who had never been off the island +in their lives. Yet surely Cazalet was less depressed than he had been +before landing; the old English ale in a pewter tankard even elicited a +few of those anecdotes and piquant comparisons in which his conversation +was at its best. It was at its worst on general questions, or on +concrete topics not introduced by himself; and into this category, +perhaps not unnaturally, fell such further particulars of the Thames +Valley mystery as were to be found in an evening paper at the inn. They +included a fragmentary report of the adjourned inquest, and the actual +offer of such a reward, by the dead man's firm, for the apprehension of +his murderer, as made Toye's eyes glisten in his sagacious head. + +But Cazalet, though he had skimmed the many-headed column before sitting +down to supper, flatly declined to discuss the tragedy his first night +ashore. + + + + +III + +IN THE TRAIN + + +Discussion was inevitable on the way up to town next morning. + +The silly season was by no means over; a sensational inquest was worth +every inch that it could fill in most of the morning papers; and the two +strange friends, planted opposite each other in the first-class smoker, +traveled inland simultaneously engrossed in a copious report of the +previous day's proceedings at the coroner's court. + +Of solid and significant fact, they learned comparatively little that +they had been unable to gather or deduce the night before. There was the +medical evidence, valuable only as tracing the fatal blow to some such +weapon as the missing truncheon; there was the butler's evidence, +finally timing the commission of the deed to within ten minutes; there +was the head gardener's evidence, confirming and supplementing that of +the butler; and there was the evidence of a footman who had answered the +telephone an hour or two before the tragedy occurred. + +The butler had explained that the dinner-hour was seven thirty; that, +not five minutes before, he had seen his master come down-stairs and +enter the library, where, at seven fifty-five, on going to ask if he had +heard the gong, he had obtained no answer but found the door locked on +the inside; that he had then hastened round by the garden, and in +through the French window, to discover the deceased gentleman lying in +his blood. + +The head gardener, who lived in the lodge, had sworn to having seen a +bareheaded man rush past his windows and out of the gates about the same +hour, as he knew by the sounding of the gong up at the house; they often +heard it at the lodge, in warm weather when the windows were open, and +the gardener swore that he himself had heard it on this occasion. + +The footman appeared to have been less positive as to the time of the +telephone call, thought it was between four and five, but remembered the +conversation very well. The gentleman had asked whether Mr. Craven was +at home, had been told that he was out motoring, asked when he would be +back, told he couldn't say, but before dinner some time, and what name +should he give, whereupon the gentleman had rung off without answering. +The footman thought he was a gentleman, from the way he spoke. But +apparently the police had not yet succeeded in tracing the call. + +"Is it a difficult thing to do?" asked Cazalet, touching on this last +point early in the discussion, which even he showed no wish to avoid +this morning. He had dropped his paper, to find that Toye had already +dropped his, and was gazing at the flying English fields with thoughtful +puckers about his somber eyes. + +"If you ask me," he replied, "I should like to know what wasn't +difficult connected with the telephone system in this country! Why, you +don't have a system, and that's all there is to it. But it's not at that +end they'll put the salt on their man." + +"Which end will it be, then?" + +"The river end. That hat, or cap. Do you see what the gardener says +about the man who ran out bareheaded? That gardener deserves to be +cashiered for not getting a move on him in time to catch that man, even +if he did think he'd only been swiping flowers. But if he went and left +his hat or his cap behind him, that should be good enough in the long +run. It's the very worst thing you _can_ leave. Ever hear of Franz +Mueller?" + +Cazalet had not heard of that immortal notoriety, nor did his ignorance +appear to trouble him at all, but it was becoming more and more clear +that Hilton Toye took an almost unhealthy interest in the theory and +practise of violent crime. + +"Franz Mueller," he continued, "left his hat behind him, only that and +nothing more, but it brought him to the gallows even though he got over +to the other side first. He made the mistake of taking a slow steamer, +and that's just about the one mistake they never did make at Scotland +Yard. Give them a nice, long, plain-sailing stern-chase and they get +there by bedtime--wireless or no wireless!" + +But Cazalet was in no mind to discuss other crimes, old or new; and he +closed the digression by asserting somewhat roundly that neither hat nor +cap had been left behind in the only case that interested him. + +"Don't be too sure," said Toye. "Even Scotland Yard doesn't show all its +hand at once, in the first inquiry that comes along. They don't give out +any description of the man that ran away, but you bet it's being +circulated around every police office in the United Kingdom." + +Cazalet said they would give it out fast enough if they had it to give. +By the way, he was surprised to see that the head gardener was the same +who had been at Uplands in his father's time; he must be getting an old +man, and no doubt shakier on points of detail than he would be likely to +admit. Cazalet instanced the alleged hearing of the gong as in itself an +unconvincing statement. It was well over a hundred yards from the gates +to the house, and there were no windows to open in the hall where the +gong would be rung. + +He sighed heavily as in his turn he looked out at the luxuriant little +paddocks and the old tiled homesteads after every two or three. But he +was not thinking of the weather-board and corrugated iron strewn so +sparsely over the yellow wilds that he had left behind him. The old +English panorama flew by for granted, as he had taken it before ever he +went out to Australia. It was as though he had never been out at all. + +"I've dreamed of the old spot so often," he said at length. "I'm not +thinking of the night before last--I meant in the bush--and now to think +of a thing like this happening, there, in the old governor's den, of all +places!" + +"Seems like a kind of poetic justice," said Hilton Toye. + +"It does. It is!" cried Cazalet, fetching moist yet fiery eyes in from +the fields. "I said to you the other night that Henry Craven never was a +white man, and I won't unsay it now. Nobody may ever know what he's done +to bring this upon him. But those who really knew the man, and suffered +for it, can guess the kind of thing!" + +"Exactly," murmured Toye, as though he had just said as much himself. +His dark eyes twinkled with deliberation and debate. "How long is it, by +the way, that they gave that clerk and friend of yours?" + +A keen look pressed the startling question; at least, it startled +Cazalet. + +"You mean Scruton? What on earth made you think of him?" + +"Talking of those who suffered for being the dead man's friends, I +guess," said Toye. "Was it fourteen years?" + +"That was it." + +"But I guess fourteen doesn't mean fourteen, ordinarily, if a prisoner +behaves himself?" + +"No, I believe not. In fact, it doesn't." + +"Do you know how much it would mean?" + +"A little more than ten." + +"Then Scruton may be out now?" + +"Just." + +Toye nodded with detestable aplomb. "That gives you something to chew +on," said he. "Of course, I don't say he's our man--" + +"I should think you didn't!" cried Cazalet, white to the lips with +sudden fury. + +Toye looked disconcerted and distressed, but at the same time frankly +puzzled. He apologized none the less readily, with almost ingenious +courtesy and fulness, but he ended by explaining himself in a single +sentence, and that told more than the rest of his straightforward +eloquence put together. + +"If a man had done you down like that, wouldn't you want to kill him the +very moment you came out, Cazalet?" + +The creature of impulse was off at a tangent. "I'd forgive him if he did +it, too!" he exclaimed. "I'd move heaven and earth to save him, guilty +or not guilty. Wouldn't you in my place?" + +"I don't know," said Hilton Toye. "It depends on the place you're in, I +guess!" And the keen dark eyes came drilling into Cazalet's skull like +augers. + +"I thought I told you?" he explained impatiently. "We were in the office +together; he was good to me, winked at the business hours I was inclined +to keep, let me down lighter in every way than I deserved. You may say +it was part of his game. But I take people as I find them. And then, as +I told you, Scruton was ten thousand times more sinned against than +sinning." + +"Are you sure? If you knew it at the time--" + +"I didn't. I told you so the last night." + +"Then it came to you in Australia?" said Toye, with a smile as whimsical +as the suggestion. + +"It did!" cried Cazalet unexpectedly. "In a letter," he added with +hesitation. + +"Well, I mustn't ask questions," said Hilton Toye, and began folding up +his newspaper with even more than his usual deliberation. + +"Oh, I'll tell you!" cried Cazalet ungraciously. "It's my own fault for +telling you so much. It was in a letter from Scruton himself that I +heard the whole thing. I'd written to him--toward the end--suggesting +things. He managed to get an answer through that would never have passed +the prison authorities. And--and that's why I came home just when I +did," concluded Cazalet; "that's why I didn't wait till after shearing. +He's been through about enough, and I've had more luck than I deserved. +I meant to take him back with me, to keep the books on our station, if +you want to know!" The brusk voice trembled. + +Toye let his newspaper slide to the floor. "But that was fine!" he +exclaimed simply. "That's as fine an action as I've heard of in a long +time." + +"If it comes off," said Cazalet in a gloomy voice. + +"Don't you worry. It'll come off. Is he out yet, for sure? I mean, do +you know that he is?" + +"Scruton? Yes--since you press it--he wrote to tell me that he was +coming out even sooner than he expected." + +"Then he can stop out for me," said Hilton Toye. "I guess I'm not +running for that reward!" + + + + +IV + +DOWN THE RIVER + + +At Waterloo the two men parted, with a fair exchange of fitting +speeches, none of which rang really false. And yet Cazalet found himself +emphatically unable to make any plans at all for the next few days; +also, he seemed in two minds now about a Jermyn Street hotel previously +mentioned as his immediate destination; and his step was indubitably +lighter as he went off first of all to the loop-line, to make sure of +some train or other that he might have to take before the day was out. + +In the event he did not take that train or any other; for the new +miracle of the new traffic, the new smell of the horseless streets, and +the newer joys of the newest of new taxicabs, all worked together and so +swiftly upon Cazalet's organism that he had a little colloquy with his +smart young driver instead of paying him in Jermyn Street. He nearly did +pay him off, and with something more than his usual impetuosity, as +either a liar or a fool with no sense of time or space. + +"But that's as quick as the train, my good fellow!" blustered Cazalet. + +"Quicker," said the smart young fellow without dipping his cigarette, +"if you were going by the old Southwestern!" + +The very man, and especially the manners that made or marred him, was +entirely new to Cazalet as a product of the old country. But he had come +from the bush, and he felt as though he might have been back there but +for the smell of petrol and the cry of the motor-horn from end to end +of those teeming gullies of bricks and mortar. + +He had accompanied his baggage just as far as the bureau of the Jermyn +Street hotel. Any room they liked, and he would be back some time before +midnight; that was his card, they could enter his name for themselves. +He departed, pipe in mouth, open knife in one hand, plug tobacco in the +other; and remarks were passed in Jermyn Street as the taxi bounced out +west in ballast. + +But indeed it was too fine a morning to waste another minute indoors, +even to change one's clothes, if Cazalet had possessed any better than +the ones he wore and did not rather glory in his rude attire. He was not +wearing leggings, and he did wear a collar, but he quite saw that even +so he might have cut an ignominious figure on the flags of Kensington +Gore; no, now it was the crowded High Street, and now it was humble +Hammersmith. He had told his smart young man to be sure and go that way. +He had been at St. Paul's school as a boy--with old Venus Potts--and he +wanted to see as many landmarks as he could. This one towered and was +gone as nearly in a flash as a great red mountain could. It seemed to +Cazalet, but perhaps he expected it to seem, that the red was a little +mellower, the ivy a good deal higher on the great warm walls. He noted +the time by the ruthless old clock. It was after one already; he would +miss his lunch. What did that matter? + +Lunch? + +Drunken men do not miss their meals, and Cazalet was simply and +comfortably drunk with the delight of being back. He had never dreamed +of its getting into his head like this; at the time he did not realize +that it had. That was the beauty of his bout. He knew well enough what +he was doing and seeing, but inwardly he was literally blind. Yesterday +was left behind and forgotten like the Albert Memorial, and to-morrow +was still as distant as the sea, if there were such things as to-morrow +and the sea. + +Meanwhile what vivid miles of dazzling life, what a subtle autumn flavor +in the air; how cool in the shadows, how warm in the sun; what a +sparkling old river it was, to be sure; and yet, if those weren't the +first of the autumn tints on the trees in Castlenau. + +There went a funeral, on its way to Mortlake! The taxi overhauled it at +a callous speed. Cazalet just had time to tear off his great soft hat. +It was actually the first funeral he had seen since his own father's; +no wonder his radiance suffered a brief eclipse. But in another moment +he was out on Barnes' Common. Then, in the Lower Richmond Road, the +smart young man began to change speed and crawl, and at once there was +something fresh to think about. The Venture and its team of grays, +Oxford and London, was trying to pass a motor-bus just ahead, and a gray +leader was behaving as though it also had just landed from the bush. +Cazalet thought of a sailing-ship and a dreadnought, and the +sailing-ship thrown up into the wind. Then he wondered how one of Cobb's +bush coaches would have behaved, and thought it might have played the +barge! + +It had been the bicycle age when he went away; now it was the motor age, +and the novelty and contrast were endless to a simple mind under the +influence of forgotten yet increasingly familiar scenes. But nothing was +lost on Cazalet that great morning; even a milk-float entranced him, +itself enchanted, with its tall can turned to gold and silver in the +sun. But now he was on all but holy ground. It was not so holy with +these infernal electric trams; still he knew every inch of it; and now, +thank goodness, he was off the lines at last. + +"Slower!" he shouted to his smart young man. He could not say that no +notice was taken of the command. But a wrought-iron gate on the left, +with a covered way leading up to the house, and the garden (that he +could not see) leading down to the river, and the stables (that he +could) across the road--all that was past and gone in a veritable +twinkling. And though he turned round and looked back, it was only to +get a sightless stare from sightless windows, to catch on a board "_This +Delightful Freehold Residence with Grounds and Stabling_," and to echo +the epithet with an appreciative grunt. + +Five or six minutes later the smart young man was driving really slowly +along a narrow road between patent wealth and blatant semi-gentility; on +the left good grounds, shaded by cedar and chestnut, and on the right a +row of hideous little houses, as pretentious as any that ever let for +forty pounds within forty minutes of Waterloo. + +"This can't be it!" shouted Cazalet. "It can't be here--stop! _Stop!_ I +tell you!" + +A young woman had appeared in one of the overpowering wooden porticoes; +two or three swinging strides were bringing her down the silly little +path to the wicket-gate with the idiotic name; there was no time to +open it before Cazalet blundered up, and shot his hand across to get a +grasp as firm and friendly as he gave. + +"Blanchie!" + +"Sweep!" + +They were their two nursery names, hers no improvement on the proper +monosyllable, and his a rather dubious token of pristine proclivities. +But out both came as if they were children still, and children who had +been just long enough apart to start with a good honest mutual stare. + +"You aren't a bit altered," declared the man of thirty-three, with a +note not entirely tactful in his admiring voice. But his old chum only +laughed. + +"Fiddle!" she cried. "But you're not altered enough. Sweep, I'm +disappointed in you. Where's your beard?" + +"I had it off the other day. I always meant to," he explained, "before +the end of the voyage. I wasn't going to land like a wild man of the +woods, you know!" + +"Weren't you! I call it mean." + +Her scrutiny became severe, but softened again at the sight of his +clutched wide-awake and curiously characterless, shapeless suit. + +"You may well look!" he cried, delighted that she should. "They're awful +old duds, I know, but you would think them a wonder if you saw where +they came from: a regular roadside shanty in a forsaken township at the +back of beyond. Extraordinary cove, the chap who made them; puts in +every stitch himself, learns Shakespeare while he's at it, knew Lindsay +Gordon and Marcus Clarke--" + +"I'm sorry to interrupt," said Blanche, laughing, "but there's your taxi +ticking up twopence every quarter of an hour, and I can't let it go on +without warning you. Where have you come from?" + +He told her with a grin, was roundly reprimanded for his extravagance, +but brazened it out by giving the smart young man a sovereign before her +eyes. After that, she said he had better come in before the neighbors +came out and mobbed him for a millionaire. And he followed her indoors +and up-stairs, into a little new den crowded with some of the big old +things he could remember in a very different setting. But if the room +was small it had a balcony that was hardly any smaller, on top of that +unduly imposing porch; and out there, overlooking the fine grounds +opposite, were basket chairs and a table, hot with the Indian summer +sun. + +"I hope you are not shocked at my abode," said Blanche. "I'm afraid I +can't help it if you are. It's just big enough for Martha and me; you +remember old Martha, don't you? You'll have to come and see her, but +she'll be horribly disappointed about your beard!" + +Coming through the room, stopping to greet a picture and a bookcase +(filling a wall each) as old friends, Cazalet had descried a photograph +of himself with that appendage. He had threatened to take the beastly +thing away, and Blanche had told him he had better not. But it did not +occur to Cazalet that it was the photograph to which Hilton Toye had +referred, or that Toye must have been in this very room to see it. In +these few hours he had forgotten the man's existence, at least in so far +as it associated itself with Blanche Macnair. + +"The others all wanted me to live near them," she continued, "but as no +two of them are in the same county it would have meant a caravan. +Besides, I wasn't going to be transplanted at my age. Here one has +everybody one ever knew, except those who escape by emigrating, simply +at one's mercy on a bicycle. There's more golf and tennis than I can +find time to play; and I still keep the old boat in the old boat-house +at Littleford, because it hasn't let or sold yet, I'm sorry to say." + +"So I saw as I passed," said Cazalet. "That board hit me hard!" + +"The place being empty hits me harder," rejoined the last of the +Macnairs. "It's going down in value every day like all the other +property about here, except this sort. Mind where you throw that match, +Sweep! I don't want you to set fire to my pampas-grass; it's the only +tree I've got!" + +Cazalet laughed; she was making him laugh quite often. But the +pampas-grass, like the rest of the ridiculous little garden in front, +was obscured if not overhung by the balcony on which they sat. And the +subject seemed one to change. + +"It was simply glorious coming down," he said. "I wouldn't swap that +three-quarters of an hour for a bale of wool; but, I say, there are some +changes! The whole show in the streets is different. I could have +spotted it with my eyes and ears shut. They used to smell like a stable, +and now they smell like a lamp. And I used to think the old cabbies +could drive, but their job was child's play to the taximan's! We were at +Hammersmith before I could light my pipe, and almost down here before it +went out! But you can't think how every mortal thing on the way appealed +to me. The only blot was a funeral at Barnes; it seemed such a sin to be +buried on a day like this, and a fellow like me just coming home to +enjoy himself!" + +He had turned grave, but not graver than at the actual moment coming +down. Indeed, he was simply coming down again, for her benefit and his +own, without an ulterior trouble until Blanche took him up with a long +face of her own. + +"We've had a funeral here. I suppose you know?" + +"Yes. I know." + +Her chair creaked as she leaned forward with an enthusiastic solemnity +that would have made her shriek if she had seen herself; but it had no +such effect on Cazalet. + +"I wonder who can have done it!" + +"So do the police, and they don't look much like finding out!" + +"It must have been for his watch and money, don't you think? And yet +they say he had so many enemies!" Cazalet kept silence; but she thought +he winced. "Of course it must have been the man who ran out of the +drive," she concluded hastily. "Where were you when it happened, Sweep?" + +Somewhat hoarsely he was recalling the Mediterranean movements of the +_Kaiser Fritz_, when at the first mention of the vessel's name he was +firmly heckled. + +"Sweep, you _don't_ mean to say you came by a German steamer?" + +"I do. It was the first going, and why should I waste a week? Besides, +you can generally get a cabin to yourself on the German line." + +"So that's why you're here before the end of the month," said Blanche. +"Well, I call it most unpatriotic; but the cabin to yourself was +certainly some excuse." + +"That reminds me!" he exclaimed. "I hadn't it to myself all the way; +there was another fellow in with me from Genoa; and the last night on +board it came out that he knew you!" + +"_Who_ can it have been?" + +"Toye, his name was. Hilton Toye." + +"An American man! Oh, but I know him very well," said Blanche in a tone +both strained and cordial. "He's great fun, Mr. Toye, with his +delightful Americanisms, and the perfectly delightful way he says them!" + +Cazalet puckered like the primitive man he was, when taken at all by +surprise; and that anybody, much less Blanche, should think Toye, of all +people, either "delightful" or "great fun" was certainly a surprise to +him, if it was nothing else. Of course it was nothing else, to his +immediate knowledge; still, he was rather ready to think that Blanche +was blushing, but forgot, if indeed he had been in a fit state to see it +at the time, that she had paid himself the same high compliment across +the gate. On the whole, it may be said that Cazalet was ruffled without +feeling seriously disturbed as to the essential issue which alone leaped +to his mind. + +"Where did you meet the fellow?" he inquired, with the suitable +admixture of confidence and amusement. + +"In the first instance, at Engelberg." + +"Engelberg! Where's that?" + +"Only one of those places in Switzerland where everybody goes nowadays +for what they call winter sports." + +She was not even smiling at his arrogant ignorance; she was merely +explaining one geographical point and another of general information. A +close observer might have thought her almost anxious not to identify +herself too closely with a popular craze. + +"I dare say you mentioned it," said Cazalet, but rather as though he was +wondering why she had not. + +"I dare say I didn't! Everything won't go into an annual letter. It was +the winter before last--I went out with Betty and her husband." + +"And after that he took a place down here?" + +"Yes. Then I met him on the river the following summer, and found he'd +got rooms in one of the Nell Gwynne Cottages, if you call that a place." + +"I see." + +But there was no more to see; there never had been much, but now Blanche +was standing up and gazing out of the balcony into the belt of singing +sunshine between the opposite side of the road and the invisible river +acres away. + +"Why shouldn't we go down to Littleford and get out the boat if you're +really going to make an afternoon of it?" she said. "But you simply must +see Martha first; and while she's making herself fit to be seen, you +must take something for the good of the house. I'll bring it to you on a +lordly tray." + +She brought him siphon, stoppered bottle, a silver biscuit-box of +ancient memories, and left him alone with them some little time; for the +young mistress, like her old retainer in another minute, was simply +dying to make herself more presentable. Yet when she had done so, and +came back like snow, in a shirt and skirt just home from the laundry, +she saw that he did not see the difference. His devouring eyes shone +neither more nor less; but he had also devoured every biscuit in the +box, though he had begun by vowing that he had lunched in town, and +stuck to the fable still. + +Old Martha had known him all his life, but best at the period when he +used to come to nursery tea at Littleford. She declared she would have +known him anywhere as he was, but she simply hadn't recognized him in +that photograph with his beard. + +"I can see where it's been," said Martha, looking him in the lower +temperate zone. "But I'm so glad you've had it off, Mr. Cazalet." + +"There you are, Blanchie!" crowed Cazalet. "You said she'd be +disappointed, but Martha's got better taste." + +"It isn't that, sir," said Martha earnestly. "It's because the dreadful +man who was seen running out of the drive, at your old home, _he_ had a +beard! It's in all the notices about him, and that's what's put me +against them, and makes me glad you've had yours off." + +Blanche turned to him with too ready a smile; but then she was really +not such a great age as she pretended, and she had never been in better +spirits in her life. + +"You hear, Sweep! I call it rather lucky for you that you were--" + +But just then she saw his face, and remembered the things that had been +said about Henry Craven by the Cazalets' friends, even ten years ago, +when she really had been a girl. + + + + +V + +AN UNTIMELY VISITOR + + +She really was one still, for in these days it is an elastic term, and +in Blanche's case there was no apparent reason why it should ever cease +to apply, or to be applied by every decent tongue except her own. If, +however, it be conceded that she herself had reached the purely mental +stage of some self-consciousness on the point of girlhood, it can not be +too clearly stated that it was the only point in which Blanche Macnair +had ever been self-conscious in her life. + +Much the best tennis-player among the ladies of the neighborhood, she +drove an almost unbecomingly long ball at golf, and never looked better +than when paddling her old canoe, or punting in the old punt. And yet, +this wonderful September afternoon, she did somehow look even better +than at either or any of those congenial pursuits, and that long before +they reached the river; in the empty house, which had known her as baby, +child and grown-up girl, to the companion of some part of all three +stages, she looked a more lustrous and a lovelier Blanche than he +remembered even of old. + +But she was not really lovely in the least; that also must be put beyond +the pale of misconception. Her hair was beautiful, and perhaps her skin, +and, in some lights, her eyes; the rest was not. It was yellow hair, not +golden, and Cazalet would have given all he had about him to see it down +again as in the oldest of old days; but there was more gold in her +skin, for so the sun had treated it; and there was even hint or glint +(in certain lights, be it repeated) of gold mingling with the pure hazel +of her eyes. But in the dusty shadows of the empty house, moving like a +sunbeam across its bare boards, standing out against the discolored +walls in the place of remembered pictures not to be compared with her, +it was there that she was all golden and still a girl. + +They poked their noses into the old bogy-hole under the nursery stairs; +they swung the gate at the head of the next flight; they swore to +finger-marks on the panels that were all the walls of the top story, and +they had a laugh in every corner, childish crimes to reconstruct, quite +bitter battles to fight over again, but never a lump in either throat +that the other could have guessed was there. And so out upon the leafy +lawn, shelving abruptly to the river; round first, however, to the +drying-green where the caretakers' garments were indeed drying +unashamed; but they knew each other well enough to laugh aloud, had +picked each other up much farther back than the point of parting ten +years ago, almost as far as the days of mixed cricket with a toy set, on +that very green. + +Then there was the poor old greenhouse, sagging in every slender timber, +broken as to every other cobwebbed pane, empty and debased within; they +could not bring themselves to enter here. + +Last of all there was the summer schoolroom over the boat-house, quite +apart from the house itself; scene of such safe yet reckless revels; in +its very aura late Victorian! + +It lay hidden in ivy at the end of a now neglected path; the +bow-windows overlooking the river were framed in ivy, like three matted, +whiskered, dirty, happy faces; one, with its lower sash propped open by +a broken plant-pot, might have been grinning a toothless welcome to two +once leading spirits of the place. + +Cazalet whittled a twig and wedged that sash up altogether; then he sat +himself on the sill, his long legs inside. But his knife had reminded +him of his plug tobacco. And his plug tobacco took him as straight back +to the bush as though the unsound floor had changed under their feet +into a magic carpet. + +"You simply have it put down to the man's account in the station books. +Nobody keeps ready money up at the bush, not even the price of a plug +like this; but the chap I'm telling you about (I can see him now, with +his great red beard and freckled fists) he swore I was charging him for +half a pound more than he'd ever had. I was station storekeeper, you +see; it was quite the beginning of things, and I'd have had to pay the +few bob myself, and be made to look so small that I shouldn't have had a +soul to call my own on the run. So I fought him for the difference; we +fought for twenty minutes behind the wood-heap; then he gave me best, +but I had to turn in till I could see again." + +"You don't mean that he--" + +Blanche had looked rather disgusted the moment before; now she was all +truculent suspense and indignation. + +"Beat me?" he cried. "Good Lord, no; but there was none too much in it." + +Fires died down in her hazel eyes, lay lambent as soft moonlight, +flickered into laughter before he had seen the fire. + +"I'm afraid you're a very dangerous person," said Blanche. + +"You've got to be," he assured her; "it's the only way. Don't take a +word from anybody, unless you mean him to wipe his boots on you. I soon +found that out. I'd have given something to have learned the noble art +before I went out. Did I ever tell you how it was I first came across +old Venus Potts?" + +He had told her at great length, to the exclusion of about every other +topic, in the second of the annual letters; and throughout the series +the inevitable name of Venus Potts had seldom cropped up without some +allusion to that Homeric encounter. But it was well worth while having +it all over again with the intricate and picaresque embroidery of a +tongue far mightier than the pen hitherto employed upon the incident. +Poor Blanche had almost to hold her nose over the primary cause of +battle; but the dialogue was delightful, and Cazalet himself made a most +gallant and engaging figure as he sat on the sill and reeled it out. He +had always been a fluent teller of any happening, and Blanche a ready +commentator, capable of raising the general level of the entertainment +at any moment. But after all these centuries it was fun enough to listen +as long as he liked to go on; and perhaps she saw that he had more scope +where they were than he could have had in the boat, or it may have been +an unrealized spell that bound them both to their bare old haunt; but +there they were a good twenty minutes later, and old Venus Potts was +still on the magic _tapis_, though Cazalet had dropped his boasting for +a curiously humble, eager and yet ineffectual vein. + +"Old Venus Potts!" he kept ejaculating. "You couldn't help liking him. +And he'd like you, my word!" + +"Is his wife nice?" Blanche wanted to know; but she was looking so +intently out her window, at the opposite end of the bow to Cazalet's, +that a man of the wider world might have thought of something else to +talk about. + +Out her window she looked past a willow that had been part of the old +life, in the direction of an equally typical silhouette of patient +anglers anchored in a punt; they had not raised a rod between them +during all this time that Blanche had been out in Australia; but as a +matter of fact she never saw them, since, vastly to the credit of +Cazalet's descriptive powers, she was out in Australia still. + +"Nelly Potts?" he said. "Oh, a jolly good sort; you'd be awful pals." + +"Should we?" said Blanche, just smiling at her invisible anglers. + +"I know you would," he assured her with immense conviction. "Of course +she can't do the things you do; but she can ride, my word! So she ought +to, when she's lived there all her life. The rooms aren't much, but the +verandas are what count most; they're better than any rooms. There are +two distinct ends to the station--it's like two houses; but of course +the barracks were good enough just for me." + +She knew about the bachelors' barracks; the annual letter had been +really very full; and then she was still out there, cultivating Nelly +Potts on a very deep veranda, though her straw hat and straw hair +remained in contradictory evidence against a very dirty window on the +Middlesex bank of the Thames. It was a shame of the September sun to +show the dirt as it was doing; not only was there a great steady pool of +sunlight on the unspeakable floor, but a doddering reflection from the +river on the disreputable ceiling. Cazalet looked rather desperately +from one to the other, and both the calm pool and the rough were broken +by shadows, one more impressionistic than the other, of a straw hat over +a stack of straw hair, that had not gone out to Australia--yet. + +And of course just then a step sounded outside somewhere on some gravel. +Confound those caretakers! What were _they_ doing, prowling about? + +"I say, Blanchie!" he blurted out. "I do believe you'd like it out +there, a sportswoman like you! I believe you'd take to it like a duck to +water." + +He had floundered to his feet as well. He was standing over her, +feeling his way like a great fatuous coward, so some might have thought. +But it really looked as though Blanche was not attending to what he did +say; yet neither was she watching her little anglers stamped in jet upon +a silvery stream, nor even seeing any more of Nelly Potts in the +Australian veranda. She had come home from Australia, and come in from +the river, and she was watching the open door at the other end of the +old schoolroom, listening to those confounded steps coming nearer and +nearer--and Cazalet was gazing at her as though he really had said +something that deserved an answer. + +"Why, Miss Blanche!" cried a voice. "And your old lady-in-waiting +figured I should find you flown!" + +Hilton Toye was already a landsman and a Londoner from top to toe. He +was perfectly dressed--for Bond Street--and his native simplicity of +bearing and address placed him as surely and firmly in the present +picture. He did not look the least bit out of it. But Cazalet did, in an +instant; his old bush clothes changed at once into a merely shabby suit +of despicable cut; the romance dropped out of them and their wearer, as +he stood like a trussed turkey-cock, and watched a bunch of hothouse +flowers presented to the lady with a little gem of a natural, courteous, +and yet characteristically racy speech. + +To the lady, mark you; for she was one, on the spot; and Cazalet was a +man again, and making a mighty effort to behave himself because the hour +of boy and girl was over. + +"Mr. Cazalet," said Toye, "I guess you want to know what in thunder I'm +doing on your tracks so soon. It's hog-luck, sir, because I wanted to +see you quite a lot, but I never thought I'd strike you right here. Did +you hear the news?" + +"No! What?" + +There was no need to inquire as to the class of news; the immediate past +had come back with Toye into Cazalet's life; and even in Blanche's +presence, even in her schoolroom, the old days had flown into their +proper place and size in the perspective. + +"They've made an arrest," said Toye; and Cazalet nodded as though he had +quite expected it, which set Blanche off trying to remember something he +had said at the other house; but she had not succeeded when she noticed +the curious pallor of his chin and forehead. + +"Scruton?" he just asked. + +"Yes, sir! This morning," said Hilton Toye. + +"You don't mean _the_ poor man?" cried Blanche, looking from one to the +other. + +"Yes, he does," said Cazalet gloomily. He stared out at the river, +seeing nothing in his turn, though one of the anglers was actually busy +with his reel. + +"But I thought Mr. Scruton was still--" Blanche remembered him, +remembered dancing with him; she did not like to say, "in prison." + +"He came out the other day," sighed Cazalet. "But how like the police +all over! Give a dog a bad name, and trust them to hunt it down and +shoot it at sight!" + +"I judge it's not so bad as all that in this country," said Hilton Toye. +"That's more like the police theory about Scruton, I guess, bar drawing +the bead." + +"When did you hear of it?" said Cazalet. + +"It was on the tape at the Savoy when I got there. So I made an +inquiry, and I figured to look in at the Kingston Court on my way to +call upon Miss Blanche. You see, I was kind of interested in all you'd +told me about the case." + +"Well?" + +"Well, that was my end of the situation. As luck and management would +have it between them, I was in time to hear your man--" + +"Not my man, please! You thought of him yourself," said Cazalet sharply. + +"Well, anyway, I was in time to hear the proceedings opened against him. +They were all over in about a minute. He was remanded till next week." + +"How did he look?" and, "Had he a beard?" demanded Cazalet and Blanche +simultaneously. + +"He looked like a sick man," said Toye, with something more than his +usual deliberation in answering or asking questions. "Yes, Miss +Blanche, he had a beard worthy of a free citizen." + +"They let them grow one, if they like, before they come out," said +Cazalet, with the nod of knowledge. + +"Then I guess he was a wise man not to take it off," rejoined Hilton +Toye. "That would only prejudice his case, if it's going to be one of +identity, with that head gardener playing lead in the witness-stand." + +"Old Savage!" snorted Cazalet. "Why, he was a dotard in our time; they +couldn't hang a dog on his evidence!" + +"Still," said Blanche, "I'd rather have it than circumstantial evidence, +wouldn't you, Mr. Toye?" + +"No, Miss Blanche, I would not," replied Toye, with unhesitating candor. +"The worst evidence in the world, in my opinion, and I've given the +matter some thought, is the evidence of identity." He turned to Cazalet, +who had betrayed a quickened interest in his views. "Shall I tell you +why? Think how often you're not so sure if you have seen a man before or +if you never have! You kind of shrink from nodding, or else you nod +wrong; if you didn't ever have that feeling, then you're not like any +other man I know." + +"I have!" cried Cazalet. "I've had it all my life, even in the wilds; +but I never thought of it before." + +"Think of it now," said Toye, "and you'll see there may be flaws in the +best evidence of identity that money can buy. But circumstantial +evidence can't lie, Miss Blanche, if you get enough of it. If the links +fit in, to prove that a certain person was in a certain place at a +certain time, I guess that's worth all the oaths of all the +eye-witnesses that ever saw daylight!" + +Cazalet laughed harshly, as for no apparent reason he led the way into +the garden. "Mr. Toye's made a study of these things," he fired over his +shoulder. "He should have been a Sherlock Holmes, and rather wishes he +was one!" + +"Give me time," said Toye, laughing. "I may come along that way yet." + +Cazalet faced him in a frame of tangled greenery. "You told me you +wouldn't!" + +"I did, sir, but that was before they put salt on this poor old crook. +If you're right, and he's not the man, shouldn't you say that rather +altered the situation?" + + + + +VI + +VOLUNTARY SERVICE + + +"And why do you think he can't have done it?" + +Cazalet had trundled the old canoe over the rollers, and Blanche was +hardly paddling in the glassy strip alongside the weir. Big drops +clustered on her idle blades, and made tiny circles as they met +themselves in the shining mirror. But below the lock there had been +something to do, and Blanche had done it deftly and silently, with +almost equal capacity and grace. It had given her a charming flush and +sparkle; and, what with the sun's bare hand on her yellow hair, she now +looked even bonnier than indoors, yet not quite, quite such a girl. But +then every bit of the boy had gone out of Cazalet. So that hour stolen +from the past was up forever. + +"Why do the police think the other thing?" he retorted. "What have they +got to go on? That's what I want to know. I agree with Toye in one +thing." Blanche looked up quickly. "I wouldn't trust old Savage an inch. +I've been thinking about him and his precious evidence. Do you realize +that it's quite dark now soon after seven? It was pretty thick saying +his man was bareheaded, with neither hat nor cap left behind to prove +it! Yet now it seems he's put a beard to him, and next we shall have the +color of his eyes!" + +Blanche laughed at his vigor of phrase; this was more like the old, +hot-tempered, sometimes rather overbearing Sweep. Something had made him +jump to the conclusion that Scruton could not possibly have killed Mr. +Craven, whatever else he might have done in days gone by. So it simply +_was_ impossible, and anybody who took the other side, or had a word to +say for the police, as a force not unknown to look before it leaped, +would have to reckon henceforth with Sweep Cazalet. + +Mr. Toye already had reckoned with him, in a little debate begun outside +the old summer schoolroom at Littleford, and adjourned rather than +finished at the iron gate into the road. In her heart of hearts Blanche +could not say that Cazalet had the best of the argument, except, indeed, +in the matter of heated emphasis and scornful asseveration. It was +difficult, however, to know what line he really took; for while he +scouted the very notion of uncorroborated identification by old Savage, +he discredited with equal warmth all Toye's contentions on behalf of +circumstantial evidence. Toye had advanced a general principle with +calm ability, but Cazalet could not be shifted from the particular +position he was so eager to defend, and would only enter into abstract +questions to beg them out of hand. + +Blanche rather thought that neither quite understood what the other +meant; but she could not blink the fact that the old friend had neither +the dialectical mind nor the unfailing courtesy of the new. That being +so, with her perception she might have changed the subject; but she +could see that Cazalet was thinking of nothing else; and no wonder, +since they were approaching the scene of the tragedy and his own old +home, with each long dip of her paddle. + +It had been his own wish to start upstream; but she could see the +wistful pain in his eyes as they fell once more upon the red turrets +and the smooth green lawn of Uplands; and she neither spoke nor looked +at him again until he spoke to her. + +"I see they've got the blinds down still," he said detachedly. "What's +happened to Mrs. Craven?" + +"I hear she went into a nursing home before the funeral." + +"Then there's nobody there?" + +"It doesn't look as if there was, does it?" said poor Blanche. + +"I expect we should find Savage somewhere. Would you very much mind, +Blanche? I should rather like--if it was just setting foot--with you--" + +But even that effective final pronoun failed to bring any buoyancy back +into his voice; for it was not in the least effective as he said it, and +he no longer looked her in the face. But this all seemed natural to +Blanche, in the manifold and overlapping circumstances of the case. She +made for the inlet at the upper end of the lawn. And her prompt +unquestioning acquiescence shamed Cazalet into further and franker +explanation, before he could let her land to please him. + +"You don't know how I feel this!" he exclaimed quite miserably. "I mean +about poor old Scruton; he's gone through so much as it is, whatever he +may have done to deserve it long ago. And he wasn't the only one, or the +worst; some day I'll tell you how I know, but you may take it from me +that's so. The real villain's gone to his account. I won't pretend I'm +sorry for him. _De mortuis_ doesn't apply if you've got to invent the +_bonum_! But Scruton--after ten years--only think of it! Is it +conceivable that he should go and do a thing like this the very moment +he gets out? I ask you, is it even conceivable?" + +He asked her with something of the ferocity with which he had turned on +Toye for suggesting that the police might have something up their +sleeves, and be given a chance. But Blanche understood him. And now she +showed herself golden to the core, almost as an earnest of her fitness +for the fires before her. + +"Poor fellow," she cried, "he has a friend in you, at any rate! And I'll +help you to help him, if there's any way I can?" + +He clutched her hand, but only as he might have clutched a man's. + +"You can't do anything; but I won't forget that," he almost choked. "I +meant to stand by him in a very different way. He'd been down to the +depths, and I'd come up a bit; then he was good to me as a lad, and it +was my father's partner who was the ruin of him. I seemed to owe him +something, and now--now I'll stand by him whatever happens and--whatever +_has_ happened!" + +Then they landed in the old, old inlet. Cazalet knew every knot in the +post to which he tied Blanche's canoe. + +It was a very different place, this Uplands, from poor old Littleford on +the lower reach. The grounds were five or six acres instead of about +one, and a house in quite another class stood farther back from the +river and very much farther from the road. + +The inlet began the western boundary, which continued past the +boat-house in the shape of a high hedge, a herbaceous border (not what +it had been in the old days), and a gravel path. This path was screened +from the lawn by a bank of rhododendrons, as of course were the back +yard and kitchen premises, past which it led into the front garden, +eventually debouching into the drive. It was the path along which +Cazalet led the way this afternoon, and Blanche at his heels was so +struck by something that she could not help telling him he knew his way +very well. + +"Every inch of it!" he said bitterly. "But so I ought, if anybody does." + +"But these rhododendrons weren't here in your time. They're the one +improvement. Don't you remember how the path ran round to the other end +of the yard? This gate into it wasn't made." + +"No more it was," said Cazalet, as they came up to the new gate on the +right. It was open, and looking through they could see where the old +gateway had been bricked. The rhododendrons topped the yard wall at +that point, masking it from the lawn, and making on the whole an +improvement of which anybody but a former son of the house might have +taken more account. + +He said he could see no other change. He pretended to recognize the very +blinds that were down and flapping in the kitchen windows facing west. +But for the fact that these windows were wide open, the whole place +seemed as deserted as Littleford; but just past the windows, and flush +with them, was the tradesmen's door, and the two trespassers were barely +abreast of it when this door opened and disgorged a man. + +The man was at first sight a most incongruous figure for the back +premises of any house, especially in the country. He was tall, rather +stout, very powerfully built and rather handsome in his way; his +top-hat shone like his patent-leather boots, and his gray cutaway suit +hung well in front and was duly creased as to the trousers; yet not for +one moment was this personage in the picture, in the sense in which +Hilton Toye had stepped into the Littleford picture. + +"May I ask what you're doing here?" he demanded bluntly of the male +intruder. + +"No harm, I hope," replied Cazalet, smiling, much to his companion's +relief. She had done him an injustice, however, in dreading an explosion +when they were both obviously in the wrong, and she greatly admired the +tone he took so readily. "I know we've no business here whatever; but it +happens to be my old home, and I only landed from Australia last night. +I'm on the river for the first time, and simply had to have a look +round." + +The other big man had looked far from propitiated by the earlier of +these remarks, but the closing sentences had worked a change. + +"Are you young Mr. Cazalet?" he cried. + +"I am, or rather I was," laughed Cazalet, still on his mettle. + +"You've read all about the case then, I don't mind betting!" exclaimed +the other with a jerk of his topper toward the house behind him. + +"I've read all I found in the papers last night and this morning, and +such arrears as I've been able to lay my hands on," said Cazalet. "But, +as I tell you, my ship only got in from Australia last night, and I came +round all the way in her. There was nothing in the English papers when +we touched at Genoa." + +"I see, I see." The man was still looking him up and down. "Well, Mr. +Cazalet, my name's Drinkwater, and I'm from Scotland Yard. I happen to +be in charge of the case." + +"I guessed as much," said Cazalet, and this surprised Blanche more than +anything else from him. Yet nothing about him was any longer like the +Sweep of other days, or of any previous part of that very afternoon. And +this was also easy to understand on reflection; for if he meant to stand +by the hapless Scruton, guilty or not guilty, he could not perhaps begin +better than by getting on good terms with the police. But his ready +tact, and in that case cunning, were certainly a revelation to one who +had known him marvelously as boy and youth. + +"I mustn't ask questions," he continued, "but I see you're still +searching for things, Mr. Drinkwater." + +"Still minding our own job," said Mr. Drinkwater genially. They had +sauntered on with him to the corner of the house, and seen a bowler hat +bobbing in the shrubbery down the drive. Cazalet laughed like a man. + +"Well, I needn't tell you I know every inch of the old place," he said; +"that is, barring alterations," as Blanche caught his eye. "But I expect +this search is harrowed, rather?" + +"Rather," said Mr. Drinkwater, standing still in the drive. He had also +taken out a presentation gold half-hunter, suitably inscribed in memory +of one of his more bloodless victories. But Cazalet could always be +obtuse, and now he refused to look an inch lower than the +detective-inspector's bright brown eyes. + +"There's just one place that's occurred to me, Mr. Drinkwater, that +perhaps may not have occurred to you." + +"Where's that, Mr. Cazalet?" + +"In the room where--the room itself." + +Mr. Drinkwater's long stare ended in an indulgent smile. "You can show +me if you like," said he indifferently. "But I suppose you know we've +got the man?" + + + + +VII + +AFTER MICHELANGELO + + +"I was thinking of his cap," said Cazalet, but only as they returned to +the tradesmen's door, and just as Blanche put in her word, "What about +me?" + +Mr. Drinkwater eyed the trim white figure standing in the sun. "The more +the merrier!" his grim humor had it. "I dare say you'll be able to teach +us a thing or two as well, miss." + +She could not help nudging Cazalet in recognition of this shaft. But +Cazalet did not look round; he had now set foot in his old home. + +It was all strangely still and inactive, as though domestic animation +had been suspended indefinitely. Yet the open kitchen door revealed a +female form in mufti; a sullen face looked out of the pantry as they +passed; and through the old green door (only now it was a red one) they +found another bowler hat bent over a pink paper at the foot of the +stairs. There was a glitter of eyes under the bowler's brim as Mr. +Drinkwater conducted his friends into the library. + +The library was a square room of respectable size, but very close and +dim with the one French window closed and curtained. But Mr. Drinkwater +shut the door as well, and added indescribably to the lighting and +atmospheric effects by switching on all the electric lamps; they burned +sullenly in the partial daylight, exposed as thin angry bunches of +red-hot wire in dusty bulbs. + +The electric light had been put in by the Cravens; all the other +fixtures in the room were as Cazalet remembered them. The bookshelves +contained different books, and now there were no busts on top. Certain +cupboards, grained and varnished in Victorian days, were undeniably +improved by being enameled white. + +But the former son of the house gave himself no time to waste in +sentimental comparisons. He tapped a pair of mahogany doors, like those +of a wardrobe let into the wall. + +"Have you looked in here?" demanded Cazalet in yet another key. His air +was almost authoritative now. Blanche could not understand it, but the +experienced Mr. Drinkwater smiled his allowances for a young fellow on +his native heath, after more years in the wilderness than were good for +young fellows. + +"What's the use of looking in a cigar cupboard?" that dangerous man of +the world made mild inquiry. + +"Cigar cupboard!" echoed Cazalet in disgust. "Did he really only use it +for his cigars?" + +"A cigar cupboard," repeated Drinkwater, "and locked up at the time it +happened. What was it, if I may ask, in Mr. Cazalet's time?" + +"I remember!" came suddenly from Blanche; but Cazalet only said, "Oh, +well, if you know it was locked there's an end of it." + +Drinkwater went to the door and summoned his subordinate. "Just fetch +that chap from the pantry, Tom," said he; but the sullen sufferer from +police rule took his time, in spite of them, and was sharply rated when +he appeared. + +"I thought you told me this was a cigar cupboard?" continued Drinkwater, +in the browbeating tone of his first words to Cazalet outside. + +"So it is," said the man. + +"Then where's the key?" + +"How should I know? _I_ never kept it!" cried the butler, crowing over +his oppressor for a change. "He would keep it on his own bunch; find his +watch, and all the other things that were missing from his pockets when +your men went through 'em, and you may find his keys, too!" + +Drinkwater gave his man a double signal; the door slammed on a petty +triumph for the servants' hall; but now both invaders remained within. + +"Try your hand on it, Tom," said the superior officer. "I'm a free-lance +here," he explained somewhat superfluously to the others, as Tom applied +himself to the lock in one mahogany door. "Man's been drinking, I +should say. He'd better be careful, because I don't take to him, drunk +or sober. I'm not surprised at his master not trusting him. It's just +possible that the place _was_ open--he might have been getting out his +cigars before dinner--but I can't say I think there's much in it, Mr. +Cazalet." + +It was open again--broken open--before many minutes; and certainly there +was not much in it, to be seen, except cigars. Boxes of these were +stacked on what might have been meant for a shallow desk (the whole +place was shallow as the wardrobe that the doors suggested, but lighted +high up at one end by a little barred window of its own) and according +to Cazalet a desk it had really been. His poor father ought never to +have been a business man; he ought to have been a poet. Cazalet said +this now as simply as he had said it to Hilton Toye on board the +_Kaiser Fritz_. Only he went rather farther for the benefit of the +gentlemen from Scotland Yard, who took not the faintest interest in the +late Mr. Cazalet, beyond poking their noses into his diminutive sanctum +and duly turning them up at what they saw. + +"He used to complain that he was never left in peace on Saturdays and +Sundays, which of course were his only quiet times for writing," said +the son, elaborating his tale with filial piety. "So once when I'd been +trying to die of scarlet fever, and my mother brought me back from +Hastings after she'd had me there some time, the old governor told us +he'd got a place where he could disappear from the district at a +moment's notice and yet be back in another moment if we rang the gong. I +fancy he'd got to tell her where it was, pretty quick; but I only found +out for myself by accident. Years afterward, he told me he'd got the +idea from Jean Ingelow's place in Italy somewhere." + +"It's in Florence," said Blanche, laughing. "I've been there and seen +it, and it's the exact same thing. But you mean Michelangelo, Sweep!" + +"Oh, do I?" he said serenely. "Well, I shall never forget how I found +out its existence." + +"No more shall I. You told me all about it at the time, as a terrific +secret, and I may tell you that I've kept it from that day to this!" + +"You would," he said simply. "But think of having the nerve to pull up +the governor's floor! It only shows what a boy will do. I wonder if the +hole's there still!" + +Now all the time the planetary detective had been watching his +satellite engaged in an attempt to render the damage done to the +mahogany doors a little less conspicuous. Neither appeared to be taking +any further interest in the cigar cupboard, or paying the slightest +attention to Cazalet's reminiscences. But Mr. Drinkwater happened to +have heard every word, and in the last sentence there was one that +caused him to prick up his expert ears instinctively. + +"What's that about a hole?" said he, turning round. + +"I was reminding Miss Macnair how the place first came to be--" + +"Yes, yes. But what about some hole in the floor?" + +"I made one myself with one of those knives that contain all sorts of +things, including a saw. It was one Saturday afternoon in the summer +holidays. I came in here from the garden as my father went out by that +door into the hall, leaving one of these mahogany doors open by mistake. +It was the chance of my life; in I slipped to have a look. He came back +for something, saw the very door you've broken standing ajar, and shut +it without looking in. So there I was in a nice old trap! I simply +daren't call out and give myself away. There was a bit of loose oilcloth +on the floor--" + +"There is still," said the satellite, pausing in his task. + +"I moved the oilcloth, in the end; howked up one end of the board +(luckily they weren't groove and tongue), sawed through the next one to +it, had it up, too, and got through into the foundations, leaving +everything much as I had found it. The place is so small that the +oilcloth was obliged to fall in place if it fell anywhere. But I had +plenty of time, because my people had gone in to dinner." + +"You ought to have been a burglar, sir," said Mr. Drinkwater ironically. +"So you covered up a sin with a crime, like half the gentlemen who go +through my hands for the first and last time! But how did you get out of +the foundations?" + +"Oh, that was as easy as pie; I'd often explored them. Do you remember +the row I got into, Blanche, for taking you with me once and simply +ruining your frock?" + +"I remember the frock!" said Blanche. + +It was her last contribution to the conversation; immediate developments +not only put an end to the further exchange of ancient memories, but +rendered it presently impossible by removing Cazalet from the scene with +the two detectives. Almost without warning, as in the harlequinade of +which they might have been the rascal heroes, all three disappeared down +the makeshift trap-door cut by one of them as a schoolboy in his +father's floor; and Blanche found herself in sole possession of the +stage, a very envious Columbine, indeed! + +She hardly even knew how it happened. The satellite must have popped +back into the Michelangelo cigar cupboard. He might have called to Mr. +Drinkwater, but the only summons that Blanche could remember hearing was +almost a sharp one from Drinkwater to Cazalet. A lot of whispering +followed in the little place; it was so small that she never saw the +hole until it had engulfed two of the trio; the third explorer, Mr. +Drinkwater himself, had very courteously turned her out of the library +before following the others. And he had said so very little beforehand +for her to hear, and so quickly prevented Cazalet from saying anything +at all, that she simply could not think what any of them were doing +under the floor. + +Under her very feet she heard them moving as she waited a bit in the +hall; then she left the house by way of the servants' quarters, of +course without holding any communication with those mutineers, and only +indignant that Mr. Drinkwater should have requested her not to do so. + +It was a long half-hour that followed for Blanche Macnair, but she +passed it characteristically, and not in morbid probings of the many +changes that had come over one young man in less than the course of a +summer's day. He was excited at getting back, he had stumbled into a +still more exciting situation, so no wonder he was one thing one moment +and another the next. That was all that Blanche allowed herself to think +of Sweep Cazalet--just then. + +She turned her wholesome mind to dogs, which in some ways she knew +better and trusted further than men. She had, of course, a dog of her +own, but it happened to be on a visit to the doctor or no doubt it would +have been in the way all the afternoon. But there was a dog at Uplands, +and as yet she had seen nothing of him; he lived in a large kennel in +the yard, for he was a large dog and rather friendless. But Blanche knew +him by sight, and had felt always sorry for him. + +The large kennel was just outside the back door, which was at the top of +the cellar steps and at the bottom of two or three leading into the +scullery; but Blanche, of course, went round by the garden. She found +the poor old dog quite disconsolate in a more canine kennel in a corner +of the one that was really worthy of the more formidable carnivora. +There was every sign of his being treated as the dangerous dog that +Blanche, indeed, had heard he was; the outer bars were further protected +by wire netting, which stretched like a canopy over the whole cage; but +Blanche let herself in with as little hesitation as she proceeded to +beard the poor brute in his inner lair. And he never even barked at her; +he just lay whimpering with his tearful nose between his two front paws, +as though his dead master had not left him to the servants all his life. + +Blanche coaxed and petted him until she almost wept herself; then +suddenly and without warning the dog showed his worst side. Out he +leaped from wooden sanctuary, almost knocking her down, and barking +horribly, but not at Blanche. She followed his infuriated eyes; and the +back doorway framed a dusty and grimy figure, just climbing into full +length on the cellar stairs, which Blanche had some difficulty in +identifying with that of Cazalet. + +"Well, you really _are_ a Sweep!" she cried when she had slipped out +just in time, and the now savage dog was still butting and clawing at +his bars. "How did you come out, and where are the enemy?" + +"The old way," he answered. "I left them down there." + +"And what did you find?" + +"I'll tell you later. I can't hear my voice for that infernal dog." + +The dreadful barking followed them out of the yard, and round to the +right, past the tradesmen's door, to the verge of the drive. Here they +met an elderly man in a tremendous hurry--an unstable dotard who +instantly abandoned whatever purpose he had formed, and came to anchor +in front of them with rheumy eyes and twitching wrinkles. + +"Why, if that isn't Miss Blanche!" he quavered. "Do you hear our Roy, +miss? I ha'n't heard that go on like that since the night that +happened!" + +Then Cazalet introduced himself to the old gardener whom he had known +all his life; and by rights the man should have wept outright, or else +emitted a rustic epigram laden with wise humor. But old Savage hailed +from silly Suffolk, and all his life he had belied his surname, but +never the alliterative libel on his native country. He took the +wanderer's return very much as a matter of course, very much as though +he had never been away at all, and was demonstrative only in his +further use of the East Anglian pronoun. + +"That's a long time since we fared to see you, Mus' Walter," said he; +"that's a right long time! And now here's a nice kettle of fish for you +to find! But I seen the man, Mus' Walter, and we'll bring that home to +him, never you fear!" + +"Are you sure that you saw him?" asked Blanche, already under Cazalet's +influence on this point. + +Savage looked cautiously toward the house before replying; then he +lowered his voice dramatically. "Sure, Miss Blanche. Why, I see him that +night as plain as I fare to see Mus' Walter now!" + +"I should have thought it was too dark to see anybody properly," said +Blanche, and Cazalet nodded vigorously to himself. + +"Dark, Miss Blanche? Why, that was broad daylight, and if that wasn't +there were the lodge lights on to see him by!" His stage voice fell a +sepulchral semitone. "But I see him again at the station this very +afternoon, I did! I promised not to talk about that--you'll keep that a +secret if I tell 'e somethin'?--but I picked him out of half a dozen at +the first time of askin'!" + +Savage said this with a pleased and vacuous grin, looking Cazalet full +in the face; his rheumy eyes were red as the sunset they faced; and +Cazalet drew a deep breath as Blanche and he turned back toward the +river. + +"First time of prompting, I expect!" he whispered. "But there's hope if +Savage is their strongest witness." + +"Only listen to that dog," said Blanche, as they passed the yard. + + + + +VIII + +FINGER-PRINTS + + +Hilton Toye was the kind of American who knew London as well as most +Londoners, and some other capitals a good deal better than their +respective citizens of corresponding intelligence. His travels were +mysteriously but enviably interwoven with business; he had an air of +enjoying himself, and at the same time making money to pay for his +enjoyment, wherever he went. His hotel days were much the same all over +Europe: many appointments, but abundant leisure. As, however, he never +spoke about his own affairs unless they were also those of the +listener--and not always then--half his acquaintances had no idea how +he made his money, and the other half wondered how he spent his time. Of +his mere interests, which were many, Toye made no such secret; but it +was quite impossible to deduce a main industry from the by-products of +his level-headed versatility. + +Criminology, for example, was an obvious by-product; it was no morbid +taste in Hilton Toye, but a scientific hobby that appealed to his mental +subtlety. And subtle he was, yet with strange simplicities; grave and +dignified, yet addicted to the expressive phraseology of his less +enlightened countrymen; naturally sincere, and yet always capable of +some ingenuous duplicity. + +The appeal of a Blanche Macnair to such a soul needs no analysis. She +had struck through all complexities to the core, such as it was or as +she might make it. As yet she could only admire the character the man +had shown, though it had upset her none the less. At Engelberg he had +proposed to her "inside of two weeks," as he had admitted without +compunction at the time. It had taken him, he said, about two minutes to +make up his mind; but the following summer he had laid more deliberate +siege, in accordance with some old idea that she had let fall to soften +her first refusal. The result had been the same, only more explicit on +both sides. She had denied him the least particle of hope, and he had +warned her that she had not heard the last of him by any means, and +never would till she married another man. This had incensed her at the +time, but a great deal less on subsequent reflection; and such was the +position between that pair when Toye and Cazalet landed in England from +the same steamer. + +On this second day ashore, as Cazalet sat over a late breakfast in +Jermyn Street, Toye sent in his card and was permitted to follow it, +rather to his surprise. He found his man frankly divided between +kidneys-and-bacon and the morning paper, but in a hearty mood, +indicative of amends for his great heat in yesterday's argument. A +plainer indication was the downright yet sunny manner in which Cazalet +at once returned to the contentious topic. + +"Well, my dear Toye, what do you think of it now?" + +[Illustration: "What do you think of it now?"] + +"I was going to ask you what you thought, but I guess I can see from +your face." + +"I think the police are rotters for not setting him free last night!" + +"Scruton?" + +"Yes. Of course, the case'll break down when it comes on next week, but +they oughtn't to wait for that. They've no right to detain a man in +custody when the bottom's out of their case already." + +"But--but the papers claim they've found the very things they were +searching for." Toye looked nonplused, as well he might, by an +apparently perverse jubilation over such intelligence. + +"They haven't found the missing cap!" crowed Cazalet. "What they have +found is Craven's watch and keys, and the silver-mounted truncheon that +killed him. But they found them in a place where they couldn't possibly +have been put by the man identified as Scruton!" + +"Say, where was that?" asked Toye with great interest. "My paper only +says the things were found, not where." + +"No more does mine, but I can tell you, because I helped to find 'em." + +"You don't say!" + +"You'll never grasp where," continued Cazalet. "In the foundations under +the house!" + +Details followed in all fulness; the listener might have had a part in +the Uplands act of yesterday's drama, might have played in the library +scene with his adored Miss Blanche, so vividly was every minute of that +crowded hour brought home to him. He also had seen the original +writing-cupboard in Michelangelo's old Florentine house; he remembered +it perfectly, and said that he could see the replica, with its shelf of +a desk stacked with cigars, and the hole in its floor. He was not so +sure that he had any very definite conception of the foundations of an +English house. + +"Ours were like ever so many little tiny rooms," said Cazalet, "where I +couldn't stand nearly upright even as a small boy without giving my head +a crack against the ground floors. They led into one another by a lot of +little manholes--tight fits even for a boy, but nearly fatal to the boss +policeman yesterday! I used to get in through one with a door, at the +back of a slab in the cellars where they used to keep empty bottles; +they keep 'em there still, because that's how I led my party out last +night." + +Cazalet's little gift of description was not ordered by an equal sense +of selection. Hilton Toye, edging in his word in a pause for a gulp of +coffee, said he guessed he visualized--but just where had those missing +things been found? + +"Three or four compartments from the first one under the library," said +Cazalet. + +"Did you find them?" + +"Well, I kicked against the truncheon, but Drinkwater dug it up. The +watch and keys were with it." + +"Say, were they buried?" + +"Only in the loose rubble and brick-dusty stuff that you get in +foundations." + +"Say, that's bad! That murderer must have known something, or else it's +a bully fluke in his favor." + +"I don't follow you, Toye." + +"I'm thinking of finger-prints. If he'd just've laid those things right +down, he'd have left the print of his hand as large as life for Scotland +Yard." + +"The devil he would!" exclaimed Cazalet. "I wish you'd explain," he +added; "remember I'm a wild man from the woods, and only know of these +things by the vaguest kind of hearsay and stray paragraphs in the +papers. I never knew you could leave your mark so easily as all that." + +Toye took the breakfast menu and placed it face downward on the +tablecloth. "Lay your hand on that, palm down," he said, "and don't move +it for a minute." + +Cazalet looked at him a moment before complying; then his fine, shapely, +sunburnt hand lay still as plaster under their eyes until Toye told him +he might take it up. Of course there was no mark whatever, and Cazalet +laughed. + +"You should have caught me when I came up from those foundations, not +fresh from my tub!" said he. + +"You wait," replied Hilton Toye, taking the menu gingerly by the edge, +and putting it out of harm's way in the empty toast-rack. "You can't see +anything now, but if you come round to the Savoy I'll show you +something." + +"What?" + +"Your prints, sir! I don't say I'm Scotland Yard at the game, but I can +do it well enough to show you how it's done. You haven't left your mark +upon the paper, but I guess you've left the sweat of your hand; if I +snow a little French chalk over it, the chalk'll stick where your hand +did, and blow off easily everywhere else. The rest's as simple as all +big things. It's hanged a few folks already, but I judge it doesn't have +much chance with things that have lain buried in brick-dust. Say, come +round to lunch and I'll have your prints ready for you. I'd like awfully +to show you how it's done. It would really be a great pleasure." + +Cazalet excused himself with decision. He had a full morning in front of +him. He was going to see Miss Macnair's brother, son of the late head of +his father's old firm of solicitors, and now one of the partners, to +get them either to take up Scruton's case themselves, or else to +recommend a firm perhaps more accustomed to criminal practise. Cazalet +was always apt to be elaborate in the first person singular, either in +the past or in the future tense; but he was more so than usual in +explaining his considered intentions in this matter that lay so very +near his heart. + +"Going to see Scruton, too?" said Toye. + +"Not necessarily," was the short reply. But it also was elaborated by +Cazalet on a moment's consideration. The fact was that he wanted first +to know if it were not possible, by the intervention of a really +influential lawyer, to obtain the prisoner's immediate release, at any +rate on bail. If impossible, he might hesitate to force himself on +Scruton in the prison, but he would see. + +"It's a perfect scandal that he should be there at all," said Cazalet, +as he rose first and ushered Toye out into the lounge. "Only think: our +old gardener saw him run out of the drive at half past seven, when the +gong went, when the real murderer must have been shivering in the +Michelangelo cupboard, wondering how the devil he was ever going to get +out again." + +"Then you think old man Craven--begging his poor pardon--was getting out +some cigars when the man, whoever he was, came in and knocked him on the +head?" + +Cazalet nodded vigorously. "That's the likeliest thing of all!" he +cried. "Then the gong went--there may even have come a knock at the +door--and there was that cupboard standing open at his elbow." + +"With a hole in the floor that might have been made for him?" + +"As it happens, yes; he'd search every inch like a rat in a trap, you +see; and there it was as I'd left it twenty years before." + +"Well, it's a wonderful yarn!" exclaimed Hilton Toye, and he lighted the +cigar that Cazalet had given him. + +"I think it may be thought one if the police ever own how they made +their find," agreed Cazalet, laughing and looking at his watch. Toye had +never heard him laugh so often. "By the way, Drinkwater doesn't want any +of all this to come out until he's dragged his man before the beak +again." + +"Which you mean to prevent?" + +"If only I can! I more or less promised not to talk, however, and I'm +sure you won't. You knew so much already, you may just as well know the +rest this week as well as next, if you don't mind keeping it to +yourself." + +Nobody could have minded this particular embargo less than Hilton Toye; +and in nothing was he less like Cazalet, who even now had the +half-regretful and self-excusing air of the impulsive person who has +talked too freely and discovered it too late. But he had been perfectly +delightful to Hilton Toye, almost too appreciative, if anything, and now +very anxious to give him a lift in his taxi. Toye, however, had shopping +to do in the very street that they were in, and he saw Cazalet off with +a smile that was as yet merely puzzled, and not unfriendly until he had +time to recall Miss Blanche's part in the strange affair of the previous +afternoon. + +Say, weren't they rather intimate, those two, even if they had known +each other all their lives? He had it from Blanche (with her second +refusal) that she was not, and never had been, engaged. And a fellow who +only wrote to her once in a year--still, they must have been darned +intimate, and this funny affair would bring them together again quicker +than anything. + +Say, what a funny affair it was when you came to think of it! Funny all +through, it now struck Toye; beginning on board ship with that dream of +Cazalet's about the murdered man, leading to all that talk of the old +grievance against him, and culminating in his actually finding the +implements of the crime in his inspired efforts to save the man of whose +innocence he was so positive. Say, if that Cazalet had not been on his +way home from Australia at the time! + +Like many deliberate speakers, Toye thought like lightning, and had +reached this point before he was a hundred yards from the hotel; then he +thought of something else, and retraced his steps. He retraced them even +to the table at which he had sat with Cazalet not very many minutes ago; +the waiter was only now beginning to clear away. + +"Say, waiter, what have you done with the menu that was in that +toast-rack? There was something on it that we rather wanted to keep." + +"I thought there was, sir," said the English waiter at that admirable +hotel. Toye, however, prepared to talk to him like an American uncle of +Dutch extraction. + +"You thought that, and you took it away?" + +"Not at all, sir. I 'appened to observe the other gentleman put the +menu in his pocket, behind your back as you were getting up, because I +passed a remark about it to the head waiter at the time!" + + + + +IX + +FAIR WARNING + + +It was much more than a map of the metropolis that Toye carried in his +able head. He knew the right places for the right things, from his +tailor's at one end of Jermyn Street to his hatter's at the other, and +from the man for collars and dress shirts, in another of St. James', to +the only man for soft shirts, on Piccadilly. Hilton Toye visited them +all in turn this fine September morning, and found the select team +agreeably disengaged, readier than ever to suit him. Then he gazed +critically at his boots. He was not so dead sure that he had struck the +only man for boots. There had been a young fellow aboard the _Kaiser +Fritz_, quite a little bit of a military blood, who had come ashore in +a pair of cloth tops that had rather unsettled Mr. Toye's mind just on +that one point. + +He thought of this young fellow when he was through with the soft-shirt +man on Piccadilly. They had diced for a drink or two in the +smoking-room, and Captain Aylmer had said he would like to have Toye see +his club any time he was passing and cared to look in for lunch. He had +said so as though he would like it a great deal, and suddenly Toye had a +mind to take him at his word right now. The idea began with those boots +with cloth tops, but that was not all there was to it; there was +something else that had been at the back of Toye's mind all morning, and +now took charge in front. + +Aylmer had talked some about a job in the war office that enabled him to +lunch daily at the Rag; but what his job had been aboard a German +steamer Toye did not know and was not the man to inquire. It was no +business of his, anyway. Reference to a card, traded for his own in +Southampton Water, and duly filed in his cigarette-case, reminded him of +the Rag's proper style and title. And there he was eventually +entertained to a sound, workmanlike, rather expeditious meal. + +"Say, did you see the cemetery at Genoa?" suddenly inquired the visitor +on their way back through the hall. A martial bust had been admired +extravagantly before the question. + +"Never want to see it again, or Genoa either," said Captain Aylmer. "The +smoking-room's this way." + +"I judge you didn't care a lot about the city?" pursued Toye as they +found a corner. + +"Genoa? Oh, I liked it all right, but you get fed up in a couple of +days neither ashore nor afloat. It's a bit amphibious. Of course you can +go to a hotel, if you like; but not if you're only a poor British +soldier." + +"Did you say you were there two days?" Toye was cutting his cigar as +though it were a corn. + +"Two whole days, and we'd had a night in the Bay of Naples just before." + +"Is that so? I only came aboard at Genoa. I guess I was wise," added +Toye, as though he was thinking of something else. There was no sort of +feeling in his voice, but he was sucking his left thumb. + +"I say, you've cut yourself!" + +"I guess it's nothing. Knife too sharp; please don't worry, Captain +Aylmer. I was going to say I only got on at Genoa, and they couldn't +give me a room to myself. I had to go in with Cazalet; that's how I saw +so much of him." + +It was Toye's third separate and independent attempt to introduce the +name and fame of Cazalet as a natural topic of conversation. Twice his +host had listened with adamantine politeness; this time he was enjoying +quite the second-best liqueur brandy to be had at the Rag; and he leaned +back in his chair. + +"You were rather impressed with him, weren't you?" said Captain Aylmer. +"Well, frankly, I wasn't, but it may have been my fault. It does rather +warp one's judgment to be shot out to Aden on a potty job at this time +o' year." + +So that was where he had been? Yes, and by Jove he had to see a man +about it all at three o'clock. + +"One of the nuts," explained Captain Aylmer, keeping his chair with fine +restraint. Toye rose with finer alacrity. "I hope you won't think me +rude," said the captain, "but I'm afraid I really mustn't keep him +waiting." + +Toye said the proper things all the way to the hat-stand, and there took +frontal measures as a last resort. "I was only going to ask you one +thing about Mr. Cazalet," he said, "and I guess I've a reason for +asking, though there's no time to state it now. What did you think of +him, Captain Aylmer, on the whole?" + +"Ah, there you have me. 'On the whole' is just the difficulty," said +Aylmer, answering the straight question readily enough. "I thought he +was a very good chap as far as Naples, but after Genoa he was another +being. I've sometimes wondered what happened in his three or four days +ashore." + +"Three or _four_, did you say?" + +And at the last moment Toye would have played Wedding Guest to Aylmer's +Ancient Mariner. + +"Yes; you see, he knew these German boats waste a couple of days at +Genoa, so he landed at Naples and did his Italy overland. Rather a good +idea, I thought, especially as he said he had friends in Rome; but we +never heard of 'em beforehand, and I should have let the whole thing +strike me a bit sooner if I'd been Cazalet. Soon enough to take a +hand-bag and a tooth-brush, eh? And I don't think I should have run it +quite so fine at Genoa, either. But there are rum birds in this world, +and always will be!" + +Toye felt one himself as he picked his way through St. James' Square. If +it had not been just after lunch, he would have gone straight and had a +cocktail, for of course he knew the only place for _them_. What he did +was to slue round out of the square, and to obtain for the asking, at +another old haunt, on Cockspur Street, the latest little time-table of +continental trains. This he carried, not on foot but in a taxi, to the +Savoy Hotel, where it kept him busy in his own room for the best part of +another hour. But by that time Hilton Toye looked more than an hour +older than on sitting down at his writing-table with pencil, paper and +the little book of trains; he looked horrified, he looked distressed, +and yet he looked crafty, determined and immensely alive. He proceeded, +however, to take some of the life out of himself, and to add still more +to his apparent age, by repairing for more inward light and leading to a +Turkish bath. + +Now the only Turkish bath, according to Hilton Toye's somewhat +exclusive code, was not even a hundred yards from Cazalet's hotel; and +there the visitor of the morning again presented himself before the +afternoon; now merely a little worn, as a man will look after losing a +stone an hour on a warm afternoon, and a bit blue again about the chin, +which of course looked a little deeper and stronger on that account. + +Cazalet was not in; his friend would wait, and in fact waited over an +hour in the little lounge. An evening paper was offered to him; he took +it listlessly, scarcely looked at it at first, then tore it in his +anxiety to find something he had quite forgotten--from the newspaper +end. But he was waiting as stoically as before when Cazalet arrived in +tremendous spirits. + +"Stop and dine!" he cried out at once. + +"Sorry I can't; got to go and see somebody," said Hilton Toye. + +"Then you must have a drink." + +"No, I thank you," said Toye, with the decisive courtesy of a total +abstainer. + +"You look as if you wanted one; you don't look a bit fit," said Cazalet +most kindly. + +"Nor am I, sir!" exclaimed Toye. "I guess London's no place for me in +the fall. Just as well, too, I judge, since I've got to light out again +straight away." + +"You haven't!" + +"Yes, sir, this very night. That's the worst of a business that takes +you to all the capitals of Europe in turn. It takes you so long to flit +around that you never know when you've got to start in again." + +"Which capital is it this time?" said Cazalet. His exuberant geniality +had been dashed very visibly for the moment. But already his high +spirits were reasserting themselves; indeed, a cynic with an ear might +have caught the note of sudden consolation in the question that Cazalet +asked so briskly. + +"Got to go down to Rome," said Toye, watching the effect of his words. + +"But you've just come back from there!" Cazalet looked no worse than +puzzled. + +"No, sir, I missed Rome out; that was my mistake, and here's this +situation been developing behind my back." + +"What situation?" + +"Oh, why, it wouldn't interest you! But I've got to go down to Rome, +whether I like it or not, and I don't like it any, because I don't have +any friends there. And that's what I'm doing right here. I was wondering +if you'd do something for me, Cazalet?" + +"If I can," said Cazalet, "with pleasure." But his smiles were gone. + +"I was wondering if you'd give me an introduction to those friends of +yours in Rome!" + +There was a little pause, and Cazalet's tongue just showed between his +lips, moistening them. It was at that moment the only touch of color in +his face. + +"_Did_ I tell you I'd any friends there?" + +The sound of his voice was perhaps less hoarse than puzzled. Toye made +himself chuckle as he sat looking up out of somber eyes. + +"Well, if you didn't," said he, "I guess I must have dreamed it!" + + + + +X + +THE WEEK OF THEIR LIVES + + +"Toye's gone back to Italy," said Cazalet. "He says he may be away only +a week. Let's make it the week of our lives!" + +The scene was the little room it pleased Blanche to call her parlor, and +the time a preposterously early hour of the following forenoon. Cazalet +might have 'planed down from the skies into her sunny snuggery, though +his brand-new Burberry rather suggested another extravagant taxicab. But +Blanche saw only his worn excited face; and her own was not at its best +in her sheer amazement. + +If she had heard the last two sentences, to understand them at the time +she would have felt bound to take them up first, and to ask how on earth +Mr. Toye could affect her plans or pleasures. But such was the effect of +the preceding statement that all the rest was several moments on the way +to her comprehension, where it arrived, indeed, more incomprehensible +than ever, but not worth making a fuss about then. + +"Italy!" she had ejaculated meanwhile. "_When_ did he go?" + +"Nine o'clock last night." + +"But"--she checked herself--"I simply can't understand it, that's all!" + +"Why? Have you seen him since the other afternoon?" + +His manner might have explained those other two remarks, now bothering +her when it was too late to notice them; on the other hand, she was by +no means sure that it did. He might simply dislike Toye, and that again +might explain his extraordinary heat over the argument at Littleford. +Blanche began to feel the air somewhat heavily charged with +explanations, either demanded or desired; they were things she hated, +and she determined not to add to them if she could help it. + +"I haven't set eyes on him again," she said. "But he's been seen +here--in a taxi." + +"Who saw him?" + +"Martha--if she's not mistaken." + +This was a little disingenuous, as will appear; but that impetuous Sweep +was in a merciful hurry to know something else. + +"When was this, Blanche?" + +"Just about dark--say seven or so. She owns it was about dark," said +Blanche, though she felt ashamed of herself. + +"Well, it's just possible. He left me about six; said he had to see +some one, too, now I think of it. But I'd give a bit to know what he was +doing, messing about down here at the last moment!" + +Blanche liked this as little as anything that Cazalet had said yet, and +he had said nothing that she did like this morning. But there were +allowances to be made for him, she knew. And yet to strengthen her +knowledge, or rather to let him confirm it for her, either by word or by +his silence, she stated a certain case for him aloud. + +"Poor old Sweep!" she laughed. "It's a shame that you should have come +home to be worried like this." + +"I am worried," he said simply. + +"I think it's just splendid, all you're doing for that poor man, but +especially the way you're doing it." + +"I wish to God you wouldn't say that, Blanche!" + +He paid her the compliment of speaking exactly as he would have spoken +to a man; or rather, she happened to be the woman to take it as a +compliment. + +"But I do say it, Sweep! I've heard all about it from Charlie. He rang +me up last night." + +"You're on the telephone, are you?" + +"Everybody is in these days. Where have you lived? Oh, I forgot!" And +she laughed. Anything to lift this duet of theirs out of the minor key! + +"But what does old Charlie really think of the case? That's more to the +point," said Cazalet uneasily. + +"Well, he seemed to fear there was no chance of bail before the +adjourned hearing. But I rather gathered he was not going to be in it +himself?" + +"No. We decided on one of those sportsmen who love rushing in where a +family lawyer like Charlie owns to looking down his nose. I've seen the +chap, and primed him up about old Savage, and our find in the +foundations. He says he'll make an example of Drinkwater, and Charlie +says they call him the Bobby's Bugbear!" + +"But surely he'll have to tell his client who's behind him?" + +"No. He's just the type who would have rushed in, anyhow. And it'll be +time enough to put Scruton under obligations when I've got him off!" + +Blanche looked at the troubled eyes avoiding hers, and thought that she +had never heard of a fine thing being done so finely. This very +shamefacedness appealed to her intensely, and yet last night Charlie had +said that old Sweep was in such tremendous spirits about it all! Why was +he so down this morning? + +She only knew she could have taken his hand, but for a very good reason +why she could not. She had even to guard against an equivocally +sympathetic voice or manner, as she asked, "How long did they remand him +for?" + +"Eight days." + +"Well, then, you'll know the best or the worst to-day week!" + +"Yes!" he said eagerly, almost himself again. "But, whichever way it +goes, I'm afraid it means trouble for me, Blanche; some time or other +I'll tell you why; but that's why I want this to be the week of our +lives." + +So he really meant what he had said before. The phrase had been no +careless misuse of words; but neither, after all, did it necessarily +apply to Mr. Toye. That was something. It made it easier for Blanche not +to ask questions. + +Cazalet had gone out on the balcony; now he called to her; and there +was no taxi, but a smart open car, waiting in the road, its brasses +blazing in the sun, an immaculate chauffeur at the wheel. + +"Whose is that, Sweep?" + +"Mine, for the week I'm talking about! I mean ours, if you'd only buck +up and get ready to come out! A week doesn't last forever, you know!" + +Blanche ran off to Martha, who fussed and hindered her with the best +intentions. It would have been difficult to say which was the more +excited of the two. But the old nurse would waste time in perfectly +fatuous reminiscences of the very earliest expeditions in which Mr. +Cazalet had lead and Blanche had followed, and what a bonny pair they +had made even then, etc. Severely snubbed on that subject, she took to +peering at her mistress, once her bairn, with furtive eagerness and +impatience; for Blanche, on her side, looked as though she had something +on her mind, and, indeed, had made one or two attempts to get it off. +She had to force it even in the end. + +"There's just one thing I want to say before I go, Martha." + +"Yes, dearie, yes?" + +"You know when Mr. Toye called yesterday, and I was out?" + +"Oh, Mr. Toye; yes, I remember, Miss Blanche." + +"Well, I don't want you to say that he came in and waited half an hour +in vain; in fact, not that he came in at all, or that you're even sure +you saw him, unless, of course, you're asked." + +"Who should ask me, I wonder?" + +"Well, I don't know, but there seems to be a little bad blood between +Mr. Toye and Mr. Cazalet." + +Martha looked for a moment as though she were about to weep, and then +for another moment as though she would die of laughing. But a third +moment she celebrated by making an utter old fool of herself, as she +would have been told to her face by anybody but Blanche, whose yellow +hair was being disarranged by the very hands that had helped to imprison +it under that motor-hat and veil. + +"Oh, Blanchie, is that all you have to tell me?" said Martha. + +And then the week of their lives began. + + + + +XI + +IN COUNTRY AND IN TOWN + + +The weather was true to them, and this was a larger matter than it might +have been. They were not making love. They were "not out for that," as +Blanche herself actually told Martha, with annihilating scorn, when the +old dear looked both knowing and longing-to-know at the end of the first +day's run. They were out to enjoy themselves, and that seemed shocking +to Martha "unless something was coming of it." She had just sense enough +to keep her conditional clause to herself. + +Yet if they were only out to enjoy themselves, in the way Miss Blanche +vowed and declared (more shame for her), they certainly had done wonders +for a start. Martha could hardly credit all they said they had done, and +as an embittered pedestrian there was nothing that she would "put past" +one of those nasty motors. It said very little for Mr. Cazalet, by the +way, in Martha's private opinion, that he should take her Miss Blanche +out in a car at all; if he had turned out as well as she had hoped, and +"meant anything," a nice boat on the river would have been better for +them both than all that tearing through the air in a cloud of smoky +dust; it would also have been much less expensive, and far more "the +thing". + +But, there, to see and hear the child after the first day! She looked so +bonny that for a time Martha really believed that Mr. Cazalet had +"spoken," and allowed herself to admire him also as he drove off later +with his wicked lamps alight. But Blanche would only go on and on about +her day, the glories of the Ripley Road and the grandeur of Hindhead. +She had brought back heaps of heather and bunches of leaves just +beginning to turn; they were all over the little house before Cazalet +had been gone ten minutes. But Blanche hadn't forgotten her poor old +Martha; she was not one to forget people, especially when she loved and +yet had to snub them. Martha's portion was picture post-cards of the +Gibbet and other landmarks of the day. + +"And if you're good," said Blanche, "you shall have some every day, and +an album to keep them in forever and ever. And won't that be nice when +it's all over, and Mr. Cazalet's gone back to Australia?" + +Crueller anticlimax was never planned, but Martha's face had brought it +on her; and now it remained to make her see for herself what an +incomparably good time they were having so far. + +"It was a simply splendid lunch at the Beacon, and _such_ a tea at +Byfleet, coming back another way," explained Blanche, who was +notoriously indifferent about her food, but also as a rule much hungrier +than she seemed to-night. "It must be that tea, my dear. It was _too_ +much. To-morrow I'm to take the _Sirram_, and I want Walter to see if he +can't get a billy and show me how they make tea in the bush; but he says +it simply couldn't be done without methylated." + +The next day they went over the Hog's Back, and the next day right +through London into Hertfordshire. This was a tremendous experience. The +car was a good one from a good firm, and the chauffeur drove like an +angel through the traffic, so that the teeming city opened before them +from end to end. Then the Hertfordshire hedges and meadows and timber +were the very things after the Hog's Back and Hindhead; not so +wonderful, of course, but more like old England and less like the bush; +and before the day was out they had seen, through dodging London on the +way back, the Harrow boys like a lot of young butlers who had changed +hats with the maids, and Eton boys as closely resembling a convocation +of slack curates. + +Then there was their Buckinghamshire day--Chalfont St. Giles and +Hughenden--and almost detached experiences such as the churchyard at +Stoke Poges, where Cazalet repeated astounding chunks of its _Elegy_, +learned as long ago as his preparatory school-days, and the terrible +disillusion of Hounslow Heath and its murderous trams. + +Then there was the wood they found where gipsies had been camping, where +they resolved that moment to do the same, just exactly in every detail +as Cazalet had so often done it in the bush; so that flesh and flour +were fetched from the neighboring village, and he sat on his heels and +turned them into mutton and damper in about a minute; and after that a +real camp-fire till long after dark, and a shadowy chauffeur smoking his +pipe somewhere in the other shadows, and thinking them, of course, quite +mad. The critic on the hearth at home thought even worse of them than +that. But Blanche only told the truth when she declared that the whole +thing had been her idea; and she might have added, a bitter +disappointment to her, because Walter simply would not talk about the +bush itself, and never had since that first hour in the old empty +schoolroom at Littleford. + +(By the way, she had taken to calling him Walter to his face.) + +Of other conversation, however, there was not and never had been the +slightest dearth between them; but it was, perhaps, a sad case of +quantity. These were two outdoor souls, and the one with the interesting +life no longer spoke about it. Neither was a great reader, even of the +papers, though Blanche liked poetry as she liked going to church; but +each had the mind that could batten quite amiably on other people. So +there was a deal of talk about neighbors down the river, and some of it +was scandal, and all was gossip; and there was a great deal about what +Blanche called their stone-age days, but again far less about +themselves when young than there had been at Littleford, that first day. +And so much for their conversation, once for all; it was frankly that of +two very ordinary persons, placed in an extraordinary position to which +they had shut their eyes for a week. + +They must have had between them, however, some rudimentary sense of +construction; for their final fling, if not just the most inspiring, was +at least unlike all the rest. It was almost as new to Blanche, and now +much more so to Cazalet; it appealed as strongly to their common stock +of freshness and simplicity. Yet cause and effect were alike undeniably +lacking in distinction. It began with cartloads of new clothes from +Cazalet's old tailor, and it ended in a theater and the Carlton. + +Martha surpassed herself, of course; she had gone about for days (or +rather mornings and evenings) in an aggressive silence, her lips +provocatively pursed; but now the time had come for her to speak out, +and that she did. If Miss Blanche had no respect for herself, there were +those who had some for her, just as there were others who seemed to have +forgotten the meaning of the word. The euphemistic plural disappeared at +the first syllable from Blanche. It was nothing to Martha that she had +been offered a place in the car (beside that forward young man) more +days than one; well did Mr. Cazalet know her feelings about motors +before he made her the offer. But she was not saying anything about what +was past. _This_ was the limit; an expression which only sullied +Martha's lips because Blanche had just applied it to her interference. +It was not behaving as a gentleman; it was enough to work unpleasant +miracles in her poor parents' graves; and though Martha herself would +die sooner than inform Mr. Charlie or the married sisters, other people +were beginning to talk, and when this came out she knew who would get +the blame. + +So Blanche seemed rather flushed and very spirited at the short and +early dinner at Dieudonne's; but it was a fact that the motoring had +affected her skin, besides making her eyes look as though she had been +doing what she simply never did. It had also toned up the lower part of +Cazalet's face to match the rest; otherwise he was more like a +meerschaum pipe than ever, with the white frieze across his forehead +(but now nothing else) to stamp him from the wilds. And soon nobody was +laughing louder at Mr. Payne and Mr. Grossmith; nobody looked better +qualified for his gaiety stall, nobody less like a predestined figure +in impending melodrama. + +So also at the Carlton later; more champagne, of course, and the jokes +of the evening to replenish a dwindling store, and the people at the +other tables to give a fresh fillip to the game of gossip. Blanche +looked as well as any of them in a fresher way than most, and Cazalet a +noble creature in all his brand-new glory; and she winced with pride at +the huge tip she saw him give the waiter; for an old friend may be proud +of an old friend, surely! Then they got a good place for watching more +people in the lounge; and the fiddling conductor proved the best worth +watching of the lot, and was pronounced the very best performer that +Cazalet had ever heard in all his life. Many other items were praised in +the same fervent formula, which Blanche confirmed about everything +except his brandy and cigar. + +Above all was it delightful to feel that their beloved car was waiting +for them outside, to whirl them out of all this racket just as late as +they liked; for quite early in the week (and this was a glaring +aggravation in Martha's eyes) Cazalet had taken lodgings for himself and +driver in those very Nell Gwynne Cottages where Hilton Toye had stayed +before him. + +All the evening nothing had been better of its kind than this music at +the very end; and, of course, it was the kind for Blanche and Cazalet, +who for his part liked anything with a tune, but could never remember +one to save his life. Yet when they played an aged waltz, actually in +its second decade, just upon half past twelve, even Cazalet cocked his +head and frowned, as though he had heard the thing before. + +"I seem to know that," he said. "I believe I've danced to it." + +"I have," said Blanche. "Often," she added suddenly; and then, "I +suppose you sometimes dance in the bush, Walter?" + +"Sometimes." + +"That's where it was, then." + +"I don't think so. You couldn't get that tremendous long note on a +piano. There it goes again--bars and bars of it! That's what I seem to +remember." + +Blanche's face never changed. "Now, that's the end. They're beginning to +put the lights out, Walter. Don't you think we'd better go?" + + + + +XII + +THE THOUSANDTH MAN + + +It had been new life to them, but now it was all over. It was the last +evening of their week, and they were spending it rather silently on +Blanche's balcony. + +"I make it at least three hundred," said Cazalet, and knocked out a pipe +that might have been a gag. "You see, we were very seldom under fifty!" + +"Speak for yourself, please! My longevity's a tender point," said +Blanche, who looked as though she had no business to have her hair up, +as she sat in a pale cross-fire between a lamp-post and her lighted +room. + +Cazalet protested that he had only meant their mileage in the car; he +made himself extremely intelligible now, as he often would when she +rallied him in a serious voice. Evidently that was not the way to rouse +him up to-night, and she wanted to cheer him after all that he had done +for her. Better perhaps not to burke the matter that she knew was on his +mind. + +"Well, it's been a heavenly time," she assured him just once more. "And +to-morrow it's pretty sure to come all right about Scruton, isn't it?" + +"Yes! To-morrow we shall probably have Toye back," he answered with grim +inconsequence. + +"What has that to do with it, Walter?" + +"Oh, nothing, of course." + +But still his tone was grim and heavy, with a schoolboy irony that he +would not explain but could not keep to himself. So Mr. Toye must be +turned out of the conversation, though it was not Blanche who had +dragged him in. She wished people would stick to their point. She meant +to make people, just for once and for their own good; but it took time +to find so many fresh openings, and he only cutting up another pipeful +of that really rather objectionable bush tobacco. + +"There's one thing I've rather wanted to ask you," she began. + +"Yes?" said Cazalet. + +"You said the other day that it would mean worry for you in any +case--after to-morrow--whether the charge is dismissed or not!" + +His wicker chair creaked under him. + +"I don't see why it should," she persisted, "if the case falls through." + +"Well, that's where I come in," he had to say. + +"Surely you mean just the other way about? If they commit the man for +trial, then you do come in, I know. It's like your goodness." + +"I wish you wouldn't say that! It hurts me!" + +"Then will you explain yourself? It's not fair to tell me so much, and +then to leave out just the bit that's making you miserable!" + +The trusty, sisterly, sensible voice, half bantering but altogether +kind, genuinely interested if the least bit inquisitive, too, would have +gone to a harder or more hardened heart than beat on Blanche's balcony +that night. Yet as Cazalet lighted his pipe he looked old enough to be +her father. + +"I'll tell you some time," he puffed. + +"It's only a case of two heads," said Blanche. "I know you're bothered, +and I should like to help, that's all." + +"You couldn't." + +"How do you know? I believe you're going to devote yourself to this +poor man--if you can get him off--I mean, when you do." + +"Well?" he said. + +"Surely I could help you there! Especially if he's ill," cried Blanche, +encouraged by his silence. "I'm not half a bad nurse, really!" + +"I'm certain you're not." + +"Does he _look_ very ill?" + +She had been trying to avoid the direct question as far as possible, but +this one seemed so harmless. Yet it was received in a stony silence +unlike any that had gone before. It was as though Cazalet neither moved +nor breathed, whereas he had been all sighs and fidgets just before. His +pipe was out already--that was the one merit of bush tobacco, it +required constant attention--and he did not look like lighting it again. + +Until to-night they had not mentioned Scruton since the motoring began. +That had been a tacit rule of the road, of wayside talk and indoor orgy. +But Blanche had always assumed that Cazalet had been to see him in the +prison; and now he told her that he never had. + +"I can't face him," he cried under his breath, "and that's the truth! +Let me get him out of this hole, and I'm his man forever; but until I +do, while there's a chance of failing, I simply can't face the fellow. +It isn't as if he'd asked to see me. Why should I force myself upon +him?" + +"He hasn't asked to see you because he doesn't know what you're doing +for him!" Blanche leaned forward as eagerly as she was speaking, all her +repressed feelings coming to their own in her for just a moment. "He +doesn't know because I do believe you wouldn't have him told that you'd +arrived, lest he should suspect! You _are_ a brick, Sweep, you really +are!" + +He was too much of one to sit still under the name. He sprang up, +beating his hands. "Why shouldn't I be--to him--to a poor devil who's +been through all he's been through? Ten years! Just think of it; no, +it's unthinkable to you or me. And it all started in our office; we were +to blame for not keeping our eyes open; things couldn't have come to +such a pass if we'd done our part, my poor old father for one--I can't +help saying it--and I myself for another. Talk about contributory +negligence! We were negligent, as well as blind. We didn't know a +villain when we saw one, and we let him make another villain under our +noses; and the second one was the only one we could see in his true +colors, even then. Do you think we owe him nothing now? Don't you think +_I_ owe him something, as the only man left to pay?" + +But Blanche made no attempt to answer his passionate questions. He had +let himself go at last; it relieved her also in a way, for it was the +natural man back again on her balcony. But he had set Blanche off +thinking on other lines than he intended. + +"I'm thinking of what _he_ must have felt he owed Mr. Craven and--and +Ethel!" she owned. + +"I don't bother my head over either of them," returned Cazalet harshly. +"He was never a white man in his lifetime, and she was every inch his +daughter. Scruton's the one I pity--because--because I've suffered so +much from that man myself." + +"But you don't think he did it!" Blanche was sharp enough to interrupt. + +"No--no--but if he had!" + +"You'd still stand by him?" + +"I've told you so before. I meant to take him back to Australia with +me--I never told you that--but I meant to take him, and not a soul out +there to know who he was." He sighed aloud over the tragic stopper on +that plan. + +"And would you still?" she asked. + +"If I could get him off." + +"Guilty or not guilty?" + +"Rather!" + +There was neither shame, pose, nor hesitation about that. Blanche went +through into the room without a word, but her eyes shone finely in the +lamplight. Then she returned with a book, and stood half in the balcony, +framed as in a panel, looking for a place. + +"You remind me of _The Thousandth Man_," she told him as she found it. + +"Who was he?" + +"He's every man who does a thousandth part of what you're doing!" said +Blanche with confidence. And then she read, rather shyly and not too +well: + + + "'One man in a thousand, Solomon says, + Will stick more close than a brother. + And it's worth while seeking him half your days + If you find him before the other. + Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend + On what the world sees in you, + But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend + With the whole round world agin you.'" + + +"I should hope he would," said Cazalet, "if he's a man at all." + +"But this is the bit for you," said Blanche: + + + "'His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right, + In season or out of season. + Stand up and back it in all men's sight-- + With _that_ for your only reason! + Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide + The shame or mocking or laughter, + But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side + _To the gallows-foot_--and after!'" + + +The last italics were in Blanche's voice, and it trembled, but so did +Cazalet's as he cried out in his formula: + +"That's the finest thing I ever heard in all my life! But it's true, and +so it should be. _I_ don't take any credit for it." + +"Then you're all the more the thousandth man!" + +He caught her suddenly by the shoulders. His rough hands trembled; his +jaw worked. "Look here, Blanchie! If _you_ had a friend, wouldn't you do +the same?" + +"Yes, if I'd such a friend as all that," she faltered. + +"You'd stand by his side 'to the gallows-foot'--if he was swine enough +to let you?" + +"I dare say I might." + +"However bad a thing it was--murder, if you like--and however much he +was mixed up in it--not like poor Scruton?" + +"I'd try to stick to him," she said simply. + +"Then you're the thousandth woman," said Cazalet. "God bless you, +Blanchie!" + +[Illustration: "God bless you, Blanchie!"] + +He turned on his heel in the balcony, and a minute later found the room +behind him empty. He entered, stood thinking, and suddenly began looking +all over for the photograph of himself, with a beard, which he had seen +there a week before. + + + + +XIII + +QUID PRO QUO + + +It was his blessing that had done it; up to then she had controlled her +feelings in a fashion worthy of the title just bestowed upon her. If +only he had stopped at that, and kept his blessing to himself! It +sounded so very much more like a knell that Blanche had begun first to +laugh, and then to make such a fool of herself (as she herself +reiterated) that she was obliged to run away in the worst possible +order. + +But that was not the end of those four superfluous words of final +benediction; before the night was out they had solved, to Blanche's +satisfaction, the hitherto impenetrable mystery of Cazalet's conduct. + +He had done something in Australia, something that fixed a gulf between +him and her. Blanche did not mean something wrong, much less a crime, +least of all any sort of complicity in the great crime which had been +committed while he was on his way home. Obviously he could have had no +connection with that, until days afterward as the accused man's friend. +Yet he had on his conscience some act or other of which he was ashamed +to speak. It might even itself be shameful; that was what his whole +manner had suggested, but what Blanche was least ready and at the same +time least unwilling to believe. She felt she could forgive such an old +friend almost anything. But she believed the worst he had done was to +emulate his friend Mr. Potts, and to get engaged or perhaps actually +married to somebody in the bush. + +There was no reason why he should not; there never had been any sort or +kind of understanding between herself and him; it was only as lifelong +friends that they had written to each other, and that only once a year. +Lifelong friendships are traditionally fatal to romance. Blanche could +remember only one occasion on which their friendship had risen to +something more--or fallen to something less! She knew which it had been +to her; especially just afterward, when all his troubles had come and he +had gone away without another word of that kind. He had resolved not to +let her tie herself, and so had tied her all the tighter, if not tighter +still by never stating his resolve. But to go as far as this is to go +two or three steps further than Blanche went in her perfectly rational +retrospect: she simply saw, as indeed she had always seen, that they +had both been free as air; and if he was free no longer, she had +absolutely no cause for complaint, even if she was fool enough to feel +it. + +All this she saw quite clearly in her very honest heart. And yet, he +might have told her; he need not have flown to see her, the instant he +landed, or seemed so overjoyed, and such a boy again, or made so much of +her and their common memories! He need not have begun begging her, in a +minute, to go out to Australia, and then never have mentioned it again; +he might just as well have told her if he had or hoped to have a wife to +welcome her! Of course he saw it afterward, himself; that was why the +whole subject of Australia had been dropped so suddenly and for good. +Most likely he had married beneath him; if so, she was very sorry, but +he might have said that he was married. Had Blanche been analyzing +herself, and not just the general position of things, she would have had +hereabouts to account to her conscience for a not unpleasing spasm at +the sudden thought of his being unhappily married all the time. + +One proof was that he had utterly forgotten all about the waltz of +_Eldorado_--even its name! No; it had some vague associations for him, +and that was worse than none at all. Blanche had its long note (not +"bars and bars," though, Sweep) wailing in her head all night. And so +for him their friendship had only fallen to something lower, to that +hateful haunting tune that he could not even decently forget! + +Curiously enough, it was over Martha that she felt least able to forgive +him. Martha would say nothing, but her unspoken denunciations of Cazalet +would be only less intolerable than her unspoken sympathy with Blanche. +Martha had been perfectly awful about the whole thing. And Martha had +committed the final outrage of being perfectly right, from her idiotic +point of view. + +Now among all these meditations of a long night, and of a still longer +day, in which nobody even troubled to send her word of the case at +Kingston, it would be too much to say that no thought of Hilton Toye +ever entered the mind of Blanche. She could not help liking him; he +amused her immensely; and he had proposed to her twice, and warned her +he would again. She felt the force of his warning, because she felt his +force of character and will. She literally felt these forces, as actual +emanations from the strongest personality that had ever impinged upon +her own. Not only was he strong, but capable and cultivated; and he +knew the whole world as most people only knew some hole or corner of it; +and could be most interesting without ever talking about himself or +other people. + +In the day of reaction, such considerations were bound to steal in as +single spies, each with a certain consolation, not altogether innocent +of comparisons. But the battalion of Toye's virtues only marched on +Blanche when Martha came to her, on the little green rug of a lawn +behind the house, to say that Mr. Toye himself had called and was in the +drawing-room. + +Blanche stole up past the door, and quickly made herself smarter than +she had ever done by day for Walter Cazalet; at least she put on a +"dressy" blouse, her calling skirt (which always looked new), and did +what she could to her hair. All this was only because Mr. Toye always +came down as if it were Mayfair, and it was rotten to make people feel +awkward if you could help it. So in sailed Blanche, in her very best for +the light of day, to be followed as soon as possible by the silver +teapot, though she had just had tea herself. And there stood Hilton +Toye, chin blue and collar black, his trousers all knees and no creases, +exactly as he had jumped out of the boat-train. + +"I guess I'm not fit to speak to you," he said, "but that's just what +I've come to do--for the third time!" + +"Oh, Mr. Toye!" cried Blanche, really frightened by the face that made +his meaning clear. It relaxed a little as she shrank involuntarily, but +the compassion in his eyes and mouth did not lessen their steady +determination. + +"I didn't have time to make myself presentable," he explained. "I +thought you wouldn't have me waste a moment if you understood the +situation. I want your promise to marry me right now!" + +Blanche began to breathe again. Evidently he was on the eve of yet +another of his journeys, probably back to America, and he wanted to go +over engaged; at first she had thought he had bad news to break to her, +but this was no worse than she had heard before. Only it was more +difficult to cope with him; everything was different, and he so much +more pressing and precipitate. She had never met this Hilton Toye +before. Yes; she was distinctly frightened by him. But in a minute she +had ceased to be frightened of herself; she knew her own mind once more, +and spoke it much as he had spoken his, quite compassionately, but just +as tersely to the point. + +"One moment," he interrupted. "I said nothing about my feelings, +because they're a kind of stale proposition by this time; but for form's +sake I may state there's no change there, except in the only direction I +guess a person's feelings are liable to change toward you, Miss Blanche! +I'm a worse case than ever, if that makes any difference." + +Blanche shook her yellow head. "Nothing can," she said. "There must be +no possible mistake about it this time, because I want you to be very +good and never ask me again. And I'm glad you didn't make all the proper +speeches, because I needn't either, Mr. Toye! But--I know my own mind +better than I ever did until this very minute--and I could simply never +marry you!" + +Toye accepted his fate with a ready resignation, little short of +alacrity. There was a gleam in his somber eyes, and his blue chin came +up with a jerk. "That's talking!" said he. "Now will you promise me +never to marry Cazalet?" + +"Mr. Toye!" + +"That's talking, too, and I guess I mean it to be. It's not all +dog-in-the-manger, either. I want that promise a lot more than I want +the other. You needn't marry me, Miss Blanche, but you mustn't marry +Cazalet." + +Blanche was blazing. "But this is simply outrageous--" + +"I claim there's an outrageous cause for it. Are you prepared to swear +what I ask, and trust me as I'll trust you, or am I to tell you the +whole thing right now?" + +"You won't force me to listen to another word from you, if you're a +gentleman, Mr. Toye!" + +"It's not what I am that counts. Swear that to me, and I swear, on my +side, that I won't give him away to you or any one else. But it must be +the most solemn contract man and woman ever made." + +The silver teapot arrived at this juncture, and not inopportunely. She +had to give him his tea, with her young maid's help, and to play a tiny +part in which he supported her really beautifully. She had time to +think, almost coolly; and one thought brought a thrill. If it was a +question of her marrying or not marrying Walter Cazalet, then he must be +free, and only the doer of some dreadful deed! + +"What _has_ he done?" she begged, with a pathetic abandonment of her +previous attitude, the moment they were by themselves. + +"Must I tell you?" His reluctance rang genuine. + +"I insist upon it!" she flashed again. + +"Well, it's a long story." + +"Never mind. I can listen." + +"You know, I had to go back to Italy--" + +"Had you?" + +"Well, I did go." He had slurred the first statement; this one was +characteristically deliberate. "I did go, and before I went I asked +Cazalet for an introduction to some friends of his down in Rome." + +"I didn't know he had any," said Blanche. She was not listening so very +well; she was, in fact, instinctively prepared to challenge every +statement, on Cazalet's behalf; and here her instinct defeated itself. + +"No more he has," said Toye, "but he claimed to have some. He left the +_Kaiser Fritz_ the other day at Naples--just when I came aboard. I guess +he told you?" + +"No. I understood he came round to Southampton. Surely you shared a +cabin?" + +"Only from Genoa; that's where Cazalet rejoined the steamer." + +"Well?" + +"He claimed to have spent the interval mostly with friends in Rome. +Those friends don't exist, Miss Blanche," said Toye. + +"Is that any business of mine?" she asked him squarely. + +"Why, yes, I'm afraid it's going to be. That is, unless you'll still +trust me--" + +"Go on, please." + +"Why, he never stayed in Rome at all, nor yet in Italy any longer than +it takes to come through on the train. Your attention for one moment!" +He took out a neat pocketbook. Blanche had opened her lips, but she did +not interrupt; she just grasped the arms of her chair, as though about +to bear physical pain. "The _Kaiser Fritz_"--Toye was speaking from his +book--"got to Naples late Monday afternoon, September eighth. She was +overdue, and I was mad about it, and madder still when I went aboard and +she never sailed till morning. I guess I'd wasted--" + +"Do tell me about Walter Cazalet!" cried Blanche. It was like small talk +from a dentist at the last moment. + +"I want you to understand about the steamer first," said Toye. "She +waited Monday night in the Bay of Naples, only sailed Tuesday morning, +only reached Genoa Wednesday morning, and lay there forty-eight hours, +as the German boats do, anyhow. That brings us to Friday morning before +the _Kaiser Fritz_ gets quit of Italy, doesn't it?" + +"Yes--do tell me about Walter!" + +"He was gone ashore Monday evening before I came aboard at Naples. I +never saw him till he scrambled aboard again Friday, about the +fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour." + +"At Genoa?" + +"Sure." + +"And you pretend to know where he'd been?" + +"I guess I do know"--and Toye sighed as he raised his little book. +"Cazalet stepped on the train that left Naples six fifty Monday evening, +and off the one timed to reach Charing Cross three twenty-five +Wednesday." + +"The day of the m--" + +"Yes. I never called it by the hardest name, myself; but it was seven +thirty Wednesday evening that Henry Craven got his death-blow somehow. +Well, Walter Cazalet left Charing Cross again by the nine o'clock that +night, and was back aboard the _Kaiser Fritz_ on Friday morning--full of +his friends in Rome who didn't exist!" + +The note-book was put away with every symptom of relief. + +"I suppose you can prove what you say?" said Blanche in a voice as dull +as her unseeing eyes. + +"I have men to swear to him--ticket-collectors, conductors, waiters on +the restaurant-car--all up and down the line. I went over the same +ground on the same trains, so that was simple. I can also produce the +barber who claims to have taken off his beard in Paris, where he put in +hours Thursday morning." + +Blanche looked up suddenly, not at Toye, but past him toward an +overladen side-table against the wall. It was there that Cazalet's +photograph had stood among many others; until this morning she had +never missed it, for she seemed hardly to have been in her room all the +week; but she had been wondering who had removed it, whether Cazalet +himself (who had spoken of doing so, she now knew why), or Martha (whom +she would not question about it) in a fit of ungovernable disapproval. +And now there was the photograph back in its place, leather frame and +all! + +"I know what you did," said Blanche. "You took that photograph with +you--the one on that table--and had him identified by it!" + +Yet she stated the fact, for his bowed head admitted it to be one, as +nothing but a fact, in the same dull voice of apathetic acquiescence in +an act of which the man himself was ashamed. She could see him wondering +at her; she even wondered at herself. Yet if all this were true, what +matter how the truth had come to light? + +"It was the night I came down to bid you good-by," he confessed, "and +didn't have time to wait. I didn't come down for the photo. I never +thought of it till I saw it there. I came down to kind of warn you, Miss +Blanche!" + +"Against him?" she said, as if there was only one man left in the world. + +"Yes--I guess I'd already warned Cazalet that I was starting on his +tracks." + +And then Blanche just said, "Poor--old--Sweep!" as one talking to +herself. And Toye seized upon the words as she had seized on nothing +from him. + +"Have you only pity for the fellow?" he cried; for she was gazing at the +bearded photograph without revulsion. + +"Of course," she answered, hardly attending. + +"Even though he killed this man--even though he came across Europe to +kill him?" + +"You don't think it was deliberate yourself, even if he did do it." + +"But can you doubt that he did?" cried Toye, quick to ignore the point +she had made, yet none the less sincerely convinced upon the other. "I +guess you wouldn't if you'd heard some of the things he said to me on +the steamer; and he's made good every syllable since he landed. Why, it +explains every single thing he's done and left undone. He'll strain +every nerve to have Scruton ably defended, but he won't see the man he's +defending; says himself that he can't face him!" + +"Yes. He said so to me," said Blanche, nodding in confirmation. + +"To you?" + +"I didn't understand him." + +"But you're been seeing him all this while?" + +"Every day," said Blanche, her soft eyes filling suddenly. "We've +had--we've had the time of our lives!" + +"My God!" said Toye. "The time of your life with a man who's got another +man's blood on his hands--and that makes no difference to you! The time +of your life with the man who knew where to lay hands on the weapon he'd +done it with, who went as far as that to save the innocent, but no +farther!" + +"He would; he will still, if it's still necessary. You don't know him, +Mr. Toye; you haven't known him all your life." + +"And all this makes no difference to a good and gentle woman--one of the +gentlest and the best God ever made?" + +"If you mean me, I won't go so far as that," said Blanche. "I must see +him first." + +"See Cazalet?" + +Toye had come to his feet, not simply in the horror and indignation +which had gradually taken possession of him, but under the stress of +some new and sudden resolve. + +"Of course," said Blanche; "of course I must see him as soon as +possible." + +"Never again!" he cried. + +"What?" + +"You shall never speak to that man again, as long as ever you live," +said Toye, with the utmost emphasis and deliberation. + +"Who's going to prevent me?" + +"I am." + +"How?" + +"By laying an information against him this minute, unless you promise +never to see or to speak to Cazalet again." + +Blanche felt cold and sick, but the bit of downright bullying did her +good. "I didn't know you were a blackmailer, Mr. Toye!" + +"You know I'm not; but I mean to save you from Cazalet, blackmail or +white." + +"To save me from a mere old friend--nothing more--_nothing_--all our +lives!" + +"I believe that," he said, searching her with his smoldering eyes. "You +couldn't tell a lie, I guess, not if you tried! But you would do +something; it's just a man being next door to hell that would bring a +God's angel--" His voice shook. + +She was as quick to soften on her side. + +"Don't talk nonsense, please," she begged, forcing a smile through her +distress. "Will you promise to do nothing if--if _I_ promise?" + +"Not to go near him?" + +"No." + +"Nor to see him here?" + +"No." + +"Nor anywhere else?" + +"No. I give you my word." + +"If you break it, I break mine that minute? Is it a deal that way?" + +"Yes! Yes! I promise!" + +"Then so do I, by God!" said Hilton Toye. + + + + +XIV + +FAITH UNFAITHFUL + + +"It's all perfectly true," said Cazalet calmly. "Those were my movements +while I was off the ship, except for the five hours and a bit that I was +away from Charing Cross. I can't dispute a detail of all the rest. But +they'll have to fill in those five hours unless they want another case +to collapse like the one against Scruton!" + +Old Savage had wriggled like a venerable worm, in the experienced talons +of the Bobby's Bugbear; but then Mr. Drinkwater and his discoveries had +come still worse out of a hotter encounter with the truculent attorney; +and Cazalet had described the whole thing as only he could describe a +given episode, down to the ultimate dismissal of the charge against +Scruton, with a gusto the more cynical for the deliberately low pitch of +his voice. It was in the little lodging-house sitting-room at Nell +Gwynne's Cottages; he stood with his back to the crackling fire that he +had just lighted himself, as it were, already at bay; for the +folding-doors were in front of his nose, and his eyes roved incessantly +from the landing door on one side to the curtained casement on the +other. Yet sometimes he paused to gaze at the friend who had come to +warn him of his danger; and there was nothing cynical or grim about him +then. + +Blanche had broken her word for perhaps the first time in her life; but +it had never before been extorted from her by duress, and it would be +affectation to credit her with much compunction on the point. Her one +great qualm lay in the possibility of Toye's turning up at any moment; +but this she had obviated to some extent by coming straight to the +cottages when he left her--presumably to look for Cazalet in London, +since she had been careful not to mention his change of address. +Cazalet, to her relief, but also a little to her hurt, she had found at +his lodgings in the neighborhood, full of the news he had not managed to +communicate to her. But it was no time for taking anything but his peril +to heart. And that they had been discussing, almost as man to man, if +rather as innocent man to innocent man; for even now, or perhaps now in +his presence least of all, Blanche could not bring herself to believe +her old friend guilty of a violent crime, however unpremeditated, for +which another had been allowed to suffer, for however short a time. + +And yet, he seemed to make no secret of it; and yet--it did explain his +whole conduct since landing, as Toye had said. + +She could only shut her eyes to what must have happened, even as Cazalet +himself had shut his all this wonderful week, that she had forgotten all +day in her ingratitude, but would never, in all her days, forget again! + +"There won't be another case," she heard herself saying, while her +thoughts ran ahead or lagged behind like sheep. "It'll never come out--I +know it won't." + +"Why shouldn't it?" he asked so sharply that she had to account for the +words, to herself as well as to him. + +"Nobody knows except Mr. Toye, and he means to keep it to himself." + +"Why should he?" + +"I don't know. He'll tell you himself." + +"Are you sure you don't know? What can he have to tell me? Why should he +screen me, Blanche?" + +His eyes and voice were furious with suspicion, but still the voice was +lowered. + +"He's a jolly good sort, you know," said Blanche, as if the whole affair +was the most ordinary one in the world. But heroics could not have +driven the sense of her remark more forcibly home to Cazalet. + +"Oh, he is, is he?" + +"I've always found him so." + +"So have I, the little I've seen of him. And I don't blame him for +getting on my tracks, mind you; he's a bit of a detective, I was fair +game, and he did warn me in a way. That's why I meant to have the +week--" He stopped and looked away. + +"I know. And nothing can undo _that_," she only said; but her voice +swelled with thanksgiving. And Cazalet looked reassured; the hot +suspicion died out of his eyes, but left them gloomily perplexed. + +"Still, I can't understand it. I don't believe it, either! I'm in his +hands. What have I done to be saved by Toye? He's probably scouring +London for me--if he isn't watching this window at this minute!" + +He went to the curtains as he spoke. Simultaneously Blanche sprang up, +to entreat him to fly while he could. That had been her first object in +coming to him as she had done, and yet, once with him, she had left it +to the last! And now it was too late; he was at the window, chuckling +significantly to himself; he had opened it, and he was leaning out. + +"That you, Toye, down there? Come up and show yourself! I want to see +you." + +He turned in time to dart in front of the folding-doors as Blanche +reached them, white and shuddering. The flush of impulsive bravado fled +from his face at the sight of hers. + +"You can't go in there. What's the matter?" he whispered. "Why should +_you_ be afraid of Hilton Toye?" + +How could she tell him? Before she had found a word, the landing door +opened, and Hilton Toye was in the room, looking at her. + +"Keep your voice down," said Cazalet anxiously. "Even if it's all over +with me but the shouting, we needn't start the shouting here!" + +He chuckled savagely at his jest; and now Toye stood looking at him. + +"I've heard all you've done," continued Cazalet. "I don't blame you a +bit. If it had been the other way about, I might have given you less run +for your money. I've heard what you've found out about my mysterious +movements, and you're absolutely right as far as you go. You don't know +why I took the train at Naples, and traveled across Europe without a +hand-bag. It wasn't quite the put-up job you may think. But, if it makes +you any happier, I may as well tell you that I _was_ at Uplands that +night, and I _did_ get out through the foundations!" + +The insane impetuosity of the man was his master now. He was a living +fire of impulse that had burst into a blaze. His voice was raised in +spite of his warning to the others, and the very first sound of Toye's +was to remind him that he was forgetting his own advice. Toye had not +looked a second time at Blanche; nor did he now; but he took in the +silenced Cazalet from head to heel, by inches. + +"I always guessed you might be crazy, and I now know it," said Hilton +Toye. "Still, I judge you're not so crazy as to deny that while you were +in that house you struck down Henry Craven, and left him for dead?" + +Cazalet stood like a red-hot stone. + +"Miss Blanche," said Toye, turning to her rather shyly, "I guess I can't +do what I said just yet. I haven't breathed a word, not yet, and perhaps +I never will, if you'll come away with me now--back to your home--and +never see Henry Craven's murderer again!" + +"And who may he be?" cried a voice that brought all three face-about. + +The folding-doors had opened, and a fourth figure was standing between +the two rooms. + + + + +XV + +THE PERSON UNKNOWN + + +The intruder was a shaggy elderly man, of so cadaverous an aspect that +his face alone cried for his death-bed; and his gaunt frame took up the +cry, as it swayed upon the threshold in dressing-gown and bedroom +slippers that Toye instantly recognized as belonging to Cazalet. The man +had a shock of almost white hair, and a less gray beard clipped roughly +to a point. An unwholesome pallor marked the fallen features; and the +envenomed eyes burned low in their sockets, as they dealt with Blanche +but fastened on Hilton Toye. + +"What do _you_ know about Henry Craven's murderer?" he demanded in a +voice between a croak and a crow. "Have they run in some other poor +devil, or were you talking about me? If so, I'll start a libel action, +and call Cazalet and that lady as witnesses!" + +[Illustration: "What do you know about Henry Craven's murderer?"] + +"This is Scruton," explained Cazalet, "who was only liberated this +evening after being detained a week on a charge that ought never to have +been brought, as I've told you both all along." Scruton thanked him with +a bitter laugh. "I've brought him here," concluded Cazalet, "because I +don't think he's fit enough to be about alone." + +"Nice of him, isn't it?" said Scruton bitterly. "I'm so fit that they +wanted to keep me somewhere else longer than they'd any right; that may +be why they lost no time in getting hold of me again. Nice, considerate, +kindly country! Ten years isn't long enough to have you as a dishonored +guest. 'Won't you come back for another week, and see if we can't +arrange a nice little sudden death and burial for you?' But they +couldn't you see, blast 'em!" + +He subsided into the best chair in the room, which Blanche had wheeled +up behind him; a moment later he looked round, thanked her curtly, and +lay back with closed eyes until suddenly he opened them on Cazalet. + +"And what was that _you_ were saying--that about traveling across Europe +and being at Uplands that night? I thought you came round by sea? And +what night do you mean?" + +"The night it all happened," said Cazalet steadily. + +"You mean the night some person unknown knocked Craven on the head?" + +"Yes." + +The sick man threw himself forward in the chair. "You never told me +this!" he cried suspiciously; both the voice and the man seemed +stronger. + +"There was no point in telling you." + +"Did you see the person?" + +"Yes." + +"Then he isn't unknown to you?" + +"I didn't see him well." + +Scruton looked sharply at the two mute listeners. They were very intent, +indeed. "Who are these people, Cazalet? No! I know one of 'em," he +answered himself in the next breath. "It's Blanche Macnair, isn't it? I +thought at first it must be a younger sister grown up like her. You'll +forgive prison manners, Miss Macnair, if that's still your name. You +look a woman to trust--if there is one--and you gave me your chair. +Anyhow, you've been in for a penny and you can stay in for a pound, as +far as I care! But who's your Amer'can friend, Cazalet?" + +"Mr. Hilton Toye, who spotted that I'd been all the way to Uplands and +back when I claimed to have been in Rome!" + +There was a touch of Scruton's bitterness in Cazalet's voice; and by +some subtle process it had a distinctly mollifying effect on the really +embittered man. + +"What on earth were you doing at Uplands?" he asked, in a kind of +confidential bewilderment. + +"I went down to see a man." + +Toye himself could not have cut and measured more deliberate +monosyllables. + +"Craven?" suggested Scruton. + +"No; a man I expected to find at Craven's." + +"The writer of the letter you found at Cook's office in Naples the +night you landed there, I guess!" + +It really was Toye this time, and there was no guesswork in his tone. +Obviously he was speaking by his little book, though he had not got it +out again. + +"How do you know I went to Cook's?" + +"I know every step you took between the _Kaiser Fritz_ and Charing Cross +and Charing Cross and the _Kaiser Fritz_!" + +Scruton listened to this interchange with keen attention, hanging on +each man's lips with his sunken eyes; both took it calmly, but Scruton's +surprise was not hidden by a sardonic grin. + +"You've evidently had a stern chase with a Yankee clipper!" said he. "If +he's right about the letter, Cazalet, I should say so; presumably it +wasn't from Craven himself?" + +"No." + +"Yet it brought you across Europe to Craven's house?" + +"Well--to the back of his house! I expected to meet my man on the +river." + +"Was that how you missed him more or less?" + +"I suppose it was." + +Scruton ruminated a little, broke into his offensive laugh, and checked +it instantly of his own accord. "This is really interesting," he +croaked. "You get to London--at what time was it?" + +"Nominally three twenty-five; but the train ran thirteen minutes late," +said Hilton Toye. + +"And you're on the river by what time?" Scruton asked Cazalet. + +"I walked over Hungerford Bridge, took the first train to Surbiton, got +a boat there, and just dropped down with the stream. I don't suppose +the whole thing took me very much more than an hour." + +"Aren't you forgetting something?" said Toye. + +"Yes, I was. It was I who telephoned to the house and found that Craven +was out motoring; so there was no hurry." + +"Yet you weren't going to see Henry Craven?" murmured Toye. + +Cazalet did not answer. His last words had come in a characteristic +burst; now he had his mouth shut tight, and his eyes were fast to +Scruton. He might have been in the witness-box already, a doomed wretch +cynically supposed to be giving evidence on his own behalf, but actually +only baring his neck by inches to the rope, under the joint persuasion +of judge and counsel. But he had one friend by him still, one who had +edged a little nearer in the pause. + +"But you did see the man you went to see?" said Scruton. + +Cazalet paused. "I don't know. Eventually somebody brushed past me in +the dark. I did think then--but I can't swear to him even now!" + +"Tell us about it." + +"Do you mean that, Scruton? Do you insist on hearing all that happened? +I'm not asking Toye; he can do what he likes. But you, Scruton--you've +been through a lot, you know--you ought to have stopped in bed--do you +really want this on top of all?" + +"Go ahead," said Scruton. "I'll have a drink when you've done; somebody +give me a cigarette meanwhile." + +Cazalet supplied the cigarette, struck the match, and held it with +unfaltering hand. The two men's eyes met strangely across the flame. + +"I'll tell you all exactly what happened; you can believe me or not as +you like. You won't forget that I knew every inch of the ground--except +one altered bit that explained itself." Cazalet turned to Blanche with a +significant look, but she only drew an inch nearer still. "Well, it was +in the little creek, where the boat-house is, that I waited for my man. +He never came--by the river. I heard the motor, but it wasn't Henry +Craven that I wanted to see, but the man who was coming to see him. +Eventually I thought I must have made a mistake, or he might have +changed his mind and come by road. The dressing-gong had gone; at least +I supposed it was that by the time. It was almost quite dark, and I +landed and went up the path past the back premises to the front of the +house. So far I hadn't seen a soul, or been seen by one, evidently; but +the French windows were open in what used to be my father's library, the +room was all lit up, and just as I got there a man ran out into the +flood of light and--" + +"I thought you said he brushed by you in the dark?" interrupted Toye. + +"I was in the dark; so was he in another second; and no power on earth +would induce me to swear to him. Do you want to hear the rest, Scruton, +or are you another unbeliever?" + +"I want to hear every word--more than ever!" + +Toye cocked his head at both question and answer, but inclined it +quickly as Cazalet turned to him before proceeding. + +"I went in and found Henry Craven lying in his blood. That's gospel--it +was so I found him--lying just where he had fallen in a heap out of the +leather chair at his desk. The top right-hand drawer of his desk was +open, the key in it and the rest of the bunch still swinging! A revolver +lay as it had dropped upon the desk--it had upset the ink--and there +were cartridges lying loose in the open drawer, and the revolver was +loaded. I swept it back into the drawer, turned the key and removed it +with the bunch. But there was something else on the desk--that +silver-mounted truncheon--and a man's cap was lying on the floor. I +picked them both up. My first instinct, I confess it, was to remove +every sign of manslaughter and to leave the scene to be reconstructed +into one of accident--seizure--anything but what it was!" + +He paused as if waiting for a question. None was asked. Toye's mouth +might have been sewn up, his eyes were like hatpins driven into his +head. The other two simply stared. + +"It was a mad idea, but I had gone mad," continued Cazalet. "I had +hated the victim alive, and it couldn't change me that he was dead or +dying; _that_ didn't make him a white man, and neither did it +necessarily blacken the poor devil who had probably suffered from him +like the rest of us and only struck him down in self-defense. The +revolver on the desk made that pretty plain. It was out of the way, but +now I saw blood all over the desk as well; it was soaking into the +blotter, and it knocked the bottom out of my idea. What was to be done? +I had meddled already; how could I give the alarm without giving myself +away to that extent, and God knows how much further? The most awful +moment of the lot came as I hesitated--the dinner-gong went off in the +hall outside the door! I remember watching the thing on the floor to +see if it would move. + +"Then I lost my head--absolutely. I turned the key in the door, to give +myself a few seconds' grace or start; it reminded me of the keys in my +hands. One of them was one of those little round bramah keys. It seemed +familiar to me even after so many years. I looked up, and there was my +father's Michelangelo closet, with its little round bramah keyhole. I +opened it as the outer door was knocked at and then tried. But my mad +instinct of altering every possible appearance, to mislead the police, +stuck to me to the last. And I took the man's watch and chain into the +closet with me, as well as the cap and truncheon that I had picked up +before. + +"I don't know how long I was above ground, so to speak, but one of my +father's objects had been to make his retreat sound-tight, and I could +scarcely hear what was going on in the room. That encouraged me; and two +of you don't need telling how I got out through the foundations, because +you know all about the hole I made myself as a boy in the floor under +the oilcloth. It took some finding with single matches; but the fear of +your neck gives you eyes in your finger-ends, and gimlets, too, by Jove! +The worst part was getting out at the other end, into the cellars; there +were heaps of empty bottles to move, one by one, before there was room +to open the manhole door and to squirm out over the slab; and I thought +they rang like a peal of bells, but I put them all back again, and +apparently ... nobody overheard in the scullery. + +"The big dog barked at me like blazes--he did again the other day--but +nobody seemed to hear him either. I got to my boat, tipped a fellow on +the towing path to take it back and pay for it--why haven't the police +got hold of him?--and ran down to the bridge over the weir. I stopped a +big car with a smart shaver smoking his pipe at the wheel. I should have +thought he'd have come forward for the reward that was put up; but I +pretended I was late for dinner I had in town, and I let him drop me at +the Grand Hotel. He cost me a fiver, but I had on a waistcoat lined with +notes, and I'd more than five minutes in hand at Charing Cross. If you +want to know, it was the time in hand that gave me the whole idea of +doubling back to Genoa; I must have been half-way up to town before I +thought of it!" + +He had told the whole thing as he always could tell an actual +experience; that was one reason why it rang so true to one listener at +every point. But the sick man's sunken eyes had advanced from their +sockets in cumulative amazement. And Hilton Toye laughed shortly when +the end was reached. + +"You figure some on our credulity!" was his first comment. + +"I don't figure on anything from you, Toye, except a pair of handcuffs +as a first instalment!" + +Toye rose in prompt acceptance of the challenge. "Seriously, Cazalet, +you ask us to believe that you did all this to screen a man you didn't +have time to recognize?" + +"I've told you the facts." + +"Well, I guess you'd better tell them to the police." Toye took his hat +and stick. Scruton was struggling from his chair. Blanche stood +petrified, a dove under a serpent's spell, as Toye made her a sardonic +bow from the landing door. "You broke your side of the contract, Miss +Blanche! I guess it's up to me to complete." + +"Wait!" + +It was Scruton's raven croak; he had tottered to his feet. + +"Sure," said Toye, "if you've anything you want to say as an interested +party." + +"Only this--he's told the truth!" + +"Well, can he prove it?" + +"I don't know," said Scruton. "But I can!" + +"You?" Blanche chimed in there. + +"Yes, I'd like that drink first, if you don't mind, Cazalet." It was +Blanche who got it for him, in an instant. "Thank you! I'd say more if +my blessing was worth having--but here's something that is. Listen to +this, you American gentleman: I was the man who wrote to him in Naples. +Leave it at that a minute; it was my second letter to him; the first was +to Australia, in answer to one from him. It was the full history of my +downfall. I got a warder to smuggle it out. That letter was my one +chance." + +"I know it by heart," said Cazalet. "It was that and nothing else that +made me leave before the shearing." + +"To meet me when I came out!" Scruton explained in a hoarse whisper. +"To--to keep me from going straight to that man, as I'd told him I +should in my first letter! But you can't hit these things off to the day +or the week; he'd told me where to write to him on his voyage, and I +wrote to Naples, but that letter did not get smuggled out. My warder +friend had got the sack. I had to put what I'd got to say so that you +could read it two ways. So I told you, Cazalet, I was going straight up +the river for a row--and you can pronounce that two ways. And I said I +hoped I shouldn't break a scull--but there's another way of spelling +that, and it was the other way I meant!" He chuckled grimly. "I wanted +you to lie low and let _me_ lie low if that happened. I wanted just one +man in the world to know I'd done it. But that's how we came to miss +each other, for you timed it to a tick, if you hadn't misread me about +the river." + +He drank again, stood straighter, and found a fuller voice. + +"Yet I never meant to do it unless he made me, and at the back of my +brain I never thought he would. I thought he'd do something for me, +after all he'd done before! Shall I tell you what he did?" + +"Got out his revolver!" cried Cazalet in a voice that was his own +justification as well. + +"Pretending it was going to be his check-book!" said Scruton through +his teeth. "But I heard him trying to cock it inside his drawer. There +was his special constable's truncheon hanging on the wall--silver +mounted, for all the world to know how he'd stood up for law and order +in the sight of men! I tell you it was a joy to feel the weight of that +truncheon, and to see the hero of Trafalgar Square fumbling with a thing +he didn't understand! I hit him as hard as God would let me--and the +rest you know--except that I nearly did trip over the man who swore it +was broad daylight at the time!" + +He tottered to the folding-doors, and stood there a moment, pointing to +Cazalet with a hand that twitched as terribly as his dreadful face. + +"No--the rest you did--the rest you did to save what wasn't worth +saving! But--I think--I'll hold out long enough to thank you--just a +little!" He was gone with a gibbering smile. + +Cazalet turned straight to Toye at the other door. "Well? Aren't you +going, too? You were near enough, you see! I'm an accessory all +right"--he dropped his voice--"but I'd be principal if I could instead +of _him_!" + +But Toye had come back into the room, twinkling with triumph, even +rubbing his hands. "You didn't see? You didn't see? I never meant to go +at all; it was a bit of bluff to make him own up, and it did, too, +bully!" + +The couple gasped. + +"You mean to tell me," cried Cazalet, "that you believed my story all +the time?" + +"Why, I didn't have a moment's doubt about it!" + +Cazalet drew away from the chuckling creature and his crafty glee. But +Blanche came forward and held out her hand. + +"Will you forgive me, Mr. Toye?" + +"Sure, if I had anything to forgive. It's the other way around, I guess, +and about time I did something to help." He edged up to the +folding-door. "This is a two-man job, Cazalet, the way I make it out. +Guess it's my watch on deck!" + +"The other's the way to the police station," said Cazalet densely. + +Toye turned solemn on the word. "It's the way to hell, if Miss Blanche +will forgive me! This is more like the other place, thanks to you folks. +Guess I'll leave the angels in charge!" + +Angelic or not, the pair were alone at last; and through the doors they +heard a quavering croak of welcome to the rather human god from the +American machine. + +"I'm afraid he'll never go back with you to the bush," whispered +Blanche. + +"Scruton?" + +"Yes." + +"I'm afraid, too. But I wanted to take somebody else out, too. I was +trying to say so over a week ago, when we were talking about old Venus +Potts. Blanchie, will you come?" + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Thousandth Woman, by Ernest W. 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